Ooc- 

c 

o 



-ocC 
o 
o 



LEWIS COLBY'S 



^TABILIBHIMMI', 



No. 122, Nassau-street, 



TO- T? TTT V r» -D IT 



^yij^ly//.,^'^ 



UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. 



1 



)0L, 



PLAIN AND ELEGANT 

BIBLES, TESTAMENTS, k PRAYER BOOKS, 
HYMN k MUSIC BOOKS. 



o 
O 



It is desirable that it stiould be understood that persona in tbe Country 
sending Casb Orders may depend upon receiving Books or Stationery on 
as favourable Terms as tbougb present to make tbe purcbases. 



O 

ooQ 



PURE CHRISTIANITY 



WORLD'S ONLY HOPE. 



BY R. W. CUSHMAN, 

PASTOR or BOWDOIN SQUARE CHURCH, BOSTON. 




V 

NEW YORK : 
PUBLISHED BY LEWIS COLBY, 

122 NASSAU STREET. 









4 ,c^^ 



m"^' 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845, 

BY LEWIS COLBY, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United 

States for the Southern District of New York. 






STEREOTYPED BY T. B. SMITH, 
216 WILLIAM STREET, NEW YORK. 



DEDICATION. 



TO ALL WHO CAN BEAR KINDLY THE STATEMENT 
AND DEFENCE OF TRUTH ; 

TO ALL WHO LOVE THE SAVIOUR, AND ARE WILLING 
TO KEEP HIS commands; 

TO ALL WHO DESIRE TO UNDERSTAND THE NATURE 
OF HIS KINGDOM, AND THE DESIGN OF HIS INSTITU- 



TIONS ; 



TO ALL WHO LOVE OUR COUNTRY, AND DESIRE THE 
PERPETUITY OF ITS FREEDOM AND VIRTUE ', 

This small Volume is Dedicated, 

BY THEIR FELLOW-COUNTRYMAN, 

AND FELLOW-CHRISTIAN, 

THE AUTHOR. 



PREFACE. 



The following little work, on the present aspect 
of Christianity and the duties of Christians, owes its 
origin to a resolution of the Ministerial Conference 
of the Boston Baptist Association, requesting the 
author to prepare an Essay on the responsibilities of 
the denomination with which they are connected. 
It was delivered before the Association at its thirty- 
third anniversary ; and owes its appearance from the 
press to a unanimous vote of that body requesting its 
publication. It has been somewhat enlarged, how- 
ever, and the notes have been added in confirmation, 
or illustration of its positions. 

The state of religion and morals under the influ- 
ence of " Catholicism" is so well known, and so 
often dwelt upon by the pulpit and the press ; and 
is, moreover, so generally considered as the starting 
point of reform — the ultima Thule of corruption ; that 
the author thought it unnecessary to enlarge on it. 
His aim Avas to show what is less understood — that 
the Reformation has needed reforming. 

It is not a pleasant thing to animadvert on long 

established, religiously cherished errors. And it 

could be to no one more unpleasant than to the writer. 

He can say, sincerely, that he loves the features of 

1* 



VI PREFACE. 

the Christian wherever he sees them, and that he 
recognizes them, to a greater or less extent, under 
every badge of religious profession. His connex- 
ions, moreover, being almost entirely among the 
supporters of the sentiments and institutes on which 
he has spoken, every social and worldly consideration 
pleads with him for silence where even " speaking 
the truth in love'' may give pain to dear friends and 
excellent Christians. But the events, in the religious 
world, that mark the present time, show that the day 
has come when the corruptions of Christianity must 
be dealt with faithfully, and Christianity itself must 
be vindicated from the surreptitious institutes and 
usages which have claimed its authority and assumed 
its name. May God grant to all who love our Lord 
Jesus Christ in sincerity the knowledge of his truth ; 
strength to obey his commands ; and a willingness 
to part with a right hand for a pure conscience. 



SYNOPTICAL VIEW. 



True religion the only moral conservative : shown by 

1. Antediluvian history; by 

2. Gentile history ; by 

3. Hebrev7 history ; by 

4. The history of Christianity. 

Condition of Christianity in 
Italy. 
Greece. 
In the Protestant countries of Europe. 

Great Britain. 

Prussia. 

Scripture View of Christianity. 

Means of the corruption of Christianity. 
Retention of Popish errors under the Reformation. 

The English Church. 

Calvin. 

Luther. 
Consequent struggles and excesses. 
The Issue on the Continent — In England. 
Religious History of this Country. 

The Pilgrims. 

Pecline of religion and morals among their descendants. 

Present tendencies. 

Means of restoring Christianity to its frimith^e Efficacy. 

1. The Bible must be made the sole guide in faith and practice. 

2. The Ministry must be restored to its true position. 

a. — Claims of Episcopacy. 

h. — Consequences to be apprehended from its preva- 
lence in this country. 



Vm SYNOPTICAL VIEW. 

3. The Church must fulfil its office. 

Primitive Churches independent: 

Witnesses, Mosheim — Barrow — Whately. 

The Ordinances must be restored to their true expres- 
sion. 

4. The professor of religion must possess an appropriate char- 

acter. 
Mischiefs of birthright membership. 

Duty of true Christians in the present state of things. 
Duty of Baptist churches. 
Their advantages. 
Their dangers. 
Their past history. 
Their present duties. 



THE WORLD'S ONLY HOPE. 



" Ye." said Jesus Christ to the first disciples 
of his faith, " are the salt of the earth : but if 
the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be 
salted ? it is thenceforth good for nothing but 
to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of 
men." 

This substance was selected by him as the 
emblem of his religion. It is familiarly known 
for its power of imparting an agreeable flavor ; 
and also for its power of preserving animal sub- 
stances from decay. 

The term savor, might direct our attention to 
the former of these properties rather than to the 
latter, but that the change supposed renders the 
substance worthless altogether : " It is thence- 
forth good for nothing but to be cast out, and to 
be trodden under foot of men." It is supposed 
to lose not only its flavor, but its virtue. 

To the experience of most persons in this 
country, this is an improbable supposition. It 



10 THE ONLY CONSERVATIVE. 

is nevertheless not without foundation in fact. 
From the accounts of Maundrell and others, it 
appears that, not only on the borders of the Dead 
Sea, but also in other places where salt is found, 
the circumstance of its losing its saltness by ex- 
posure to the sun and rain, is not at all uncom- 
mon. That traveller speaks of breaking off a 
fragment of rock-salt in what is called the Val- 
ley of Salt, near Aleppo, the inner surface of 
w^hich had its usual taste, while the outside, 
*' though it had the sparks and particles of salt, 
had perfectly lost its savor." 

The substance, then, in the degeneracy which 
Christ speaks of as possible, and in which Maun- 
drell found it, might be called salt without salt- 
ness. It was matter without spirit ; it was body 
without life. If it were to be mingled with animal 
substances, it would no longer resist their ten- 
dency to corruption. It could not be relied on : 
if it were, it would repay reliance with disappoint- 
ment and damage. 

It is not to the flavor, then, that he refers when 
he says. Ye are the salt of the earth, so much as 
to the power of resisting putrefaction and decay • 
He speaks of it as having an antagonizing 
property : and, in further enforcement of that 
idea, he adds, Ye are the light of the world. 
Without light the world would be in darkness : 
the light opposes the darkness, and preserves the 



TRUE RELIGION. 11 

world from its sway. It is, then, the antagoniz- 
ing property of the substance — its power to re- 
sist corruption^ and to preserve in healthful 
soundness, that with which it mingles, of which 
he speaks when he says, Ye are the salt of the 
earth. 

But who did he intend should bear this char- 
acter ? Not his personal disciples exclusively, but 
all others, in every nation and in every age, who 
should "obtain like precious faith with them.'' 
As, in another of his expressive symbols — the 
parable of the leaven — the kingdom of heaven 
was equally represented by the remotest portions, 
in the circumference of the mass, as by that in 
the cetitre, with Avhich the process began ; so 
into whatever clime or age his religion should 
extend, he expected the truth of the figure to be 
sustained and illustrated by those who should 
bear the Christian name. 

One thing more as to the scope of this s)aTibol 
of salt. As the substance, the material of salt, 
is useless without its spirit ; so the spirit is effec- 
tive only as it acts through the medium of the 
material. By this we are admonished that Chris- 
tianity is not to do its service to the world as a 
mere abstraction^ but an embodied spirit — an 
incarnation : a spirit sending out its virtue 
through the life and action of its professors. 
. What, then, is the instruction which Christ in- 



12 THE ONLY CONSERVATIVE. 

tended to convey ? It is this : First, by implica- 
tion, that the natural tendency of human society 
is towards corruption and dissolution ; Secondly, 
that the divinely appointed counter-agent is the 
embodied, active spirit of Christianity ; and 
Thirdly, that when a professedly Christian body 
has lost the Christian spirit, it is both worthless 
and contemptible : deserving neither respect nor 
favor. 

Of the truth of the first of these lessons the 
history of mankind is full of melancholy illustra- 
tion. From the day that sin entered Eden, the 
progress of mankind was, in morals, downioardy 
till " the earth w^as corrupt before God ; and the 
earth was filled w^ith violence, and God looked 
upon the earth, and behold it was corrupt : for 
all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. 
And God saw that the wickedness of man was 
great in the earth, and that every imagination of 
the thoughts of his heart was only evil continu- 
ally." 

A second illustration is read in the moral his- 
tory of the world after the flood, as it was repeopled 
by the righteous family of Noah. The second 
world began with the advantage of the instruc- 
tions of patriarchal piety enforced by the warn- 
ing example of the career and the overthrow of 
the first. Had the lesson been effective, and the 
virtues of the first of its generations been re- 



A PURE RELIGION. 13 

produced in those that followed, Abraham had 
never been called forth from the land of the Chal- 
deesj nor Israel been planted on the hills of Pal- 
estine. 

A third illustration is found in the history of 
that very people Israel : a nation selected and 
severed from the rest of mankind, and enjoying the 
advantage not only of a pious origin, as the inhab- 
itants both of the antediluvian and the postdilu- 
vian world had done before them ; and the ad- 
vantage of the lessons derivable from the cor- 
ruption and miseries of those who had been 
swept away before them, as the posterity of 
Noah particularly had done ; but also the advan- 
tage of the lessons derivable from the degrada- 
tion and wretchedness of those who were hving 
around them. An illustration this, not merely of 
the tendency of mankind to corruption, but a 
melancholy example of the force of that ten- 
dency : a force which, in their case, bore on- 
ward in triumph over the safeguards of ^'the 
adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and 
the giving of the law, and the service, and the 
promisesj" which had given them a moral van- 
tage ground above every other people. 

A fourth and deeply instructive illustration of 

this tendency is found in those lands where the 

Gospel, in its first promulgation, triumphed over 

idolatry with its abominations ; and wrought an 

2 



14 THE ONLY MORAL CONSERVATIVE. 

entire change in the moral aspect of society : but 
where, now, a corruption as rank festers even un- 
der the profession of Christianity as was ever seen 
in the days of heathen Corinth or Paphos. Such 
is Northeastern Africa ; such is Western Asia ; 
such is Greece ; such is Italy ; and such, in fact, 
is the most of Europe. 

A fifth illustration, alas, is furnished by the 
moral history of our own beloved New England. 

Our forefathers, with all their faults of bigotry 
and intolerance, were a godly people : a devout, 
self-denying, frugal, industrious, and humble 
people. But, as generations have come and 
gone, the virtues of the sires have shone less 
and less brightly in the sons ; till now, in im- 
piety, infidelity, luxury, and licentiousness, we 
seem fast treading the downward road by which 
the people of other times and other lands have 
sunk to debasement and ruin. 

Now, in every instance it would seem that 
the element of evil had proved an overmatch 
for the element of good : that neither the prime- 
val, nor the patriarchal, nor the Mosaic, no, nor 
yet the Christian dispensation, has been able to 
furnish to the world an element of conservative- 
ness sufficiently powerful to resist its downward 
progress to corruption. Such is the imputation 
which the enemies of religion seem justified by 



CORRUPTIONS OP CHRISTIANITY. 15 

its history in casting on every form of it which 
has claimed an origin from heaven. 

The Christian rehgion — the last and the 
most perfect dispensation that God has given — 
appears as powerless over a great portion of the 
world where it is professed, as did ever the reli- 
gion of any other professedly divine dispensation 
which went before it : and we might almost add, 
as powerless as any religion acknowledged to be 
the mere invention of men. 

Take Italy, for instance. Looking over that 
land in its present moral aspect and comparing 
Italy as it isj nominally Christian, with Italy as 
it was when pagan, we might ask, What better 
is Italy, now, under the religious sway of her 
christian " Pontifex Maximus," than she was un- 
der her pagan ? 

Take Asia Minor and Greece : countries 
favored by the preaching of apostles ; the seats 
of the churches of Galatia and Ephesus, of 
Corinth, of Philippi, of Colosse, and Thessa- 
lonica, the original possessors of the Pauline 
epistles: and the churches of Philadelphia, 
Smyrna, Thyatira, Laodicea, Pergamos, and 
Sardis, to which were directed epistles from 
Christ : and what do you find there now ? 

You find, not Christian churches, but one 
mighty religious organization, called a church, 
embracing the entire Greek population ; whose 



16 GREECE. 

offices and ministry, and the moral character of 
whose membership, have witnessed no change 
for ages, because they are beUeved to have at- 
tained a development which admits of no im- 
provement. 

" The people," says a late American traveller,* 
'^are furnished with numerous substitutes for the 
pure Gospel ; are riveted to dead forms ; believe 
themselves to belong to the only true church, 
and heirs of salvation because they are baptized, 
have been on a pilgrimage, or have done some 
supposed work of merit ; and are resting perfect- 
ly satisfied with their state and prospects.'' 

The right to membership is inherited by 
birth. Baptism with them is regeneration. By 
the catechisms of the church they are taught that 
it cleanses both from original sin, and from sins 
deliberately committed : and it is a common say- 
ing among them, that a man baptized goes not 
to hell. The priests claim to be invested with 
mysterious power from heaven. The people re- 
gard them as having, by virtue of their office 
and without regard to their personal character, 
the power of pardoning sin, and the entire con- 
trol of their eternal destinies. 

A scene, which is of annual occurrence on the 
shore of the Bosphorus, will, perhaps, give a 
more distinct idea of the present state of Greek 

* Dr. Hawes. 



GREECE. 17 

Christianity than any general description can 
do. It is called the baptism of Christ ! 

A strong guard of Turkish soldiery are found 
assembUng at early dawn upon the shore, and 
forming into a hollow square. The votaries of 
the crescent are gathered to keep the peace 
among the followers of the cross ! A procession 
is soon seen advancing from the church, with 
furious singing and flaming torches, bearing 
high above the heads of the multitude, who are 
bowing and crossing themselves, a train of pic- 
tures ; the foremost of which is that of the 
Virgin Mary ; theji of the Saviour ; after which 
that of the Baptist ; and then the Spirit in the 
form of a dove. A shout from Mussulman 
spectators — a shout of indignant curses upon 
Christian idolatry — mingles with the hymn to 
the Virgin, as the procession moves onw^ard to 
the shore. 

The Bishop, arrayed in gorgeous apparel, 
and crowned with a mitre of silver and gold, and 
bearing in his hand a cross, is borne aloft on a 
kind of throne hy ^^ abject multitude, that his 
sacred feet may not touch the earth. 

As he passes, they are pressing with uncovered 

heads to kiss, if they may, but the hem of his 

garment ; too happy if they may meet his eye, 

or get in the direction of his lifted hand ; and 

2* 



18 PRESENT STATE OF CHRISTIANITY. 

eagerly asking each other, after he has passed, 
if they have caught a blessiiig ! 

The files of Mohammedan soldiery open to 
receive the Christian procession of bishop, priests, 
and pictures ; and close again to guard them from 
the too near approach of their worshipers. 

The hollow square, of which the military on 
the shore form a part, is completed on the water 
by boats, and sloops, and lighters anchored side 
by side, and densely filled with men, women, 
and children. 

On the shore, in the centre of this vast multi- 
tude, stand — abhorrent and blasphemous specta- 
cle ! — six naked men as the godfathers of 
Christy in this ceremony of his baptism ! ! 

In this instance, however, not an image in 
human form but a simple cross is made the rep- 
resentative of Christ. The bishop, standing 
on the shore with his naked attendants at his 
side, and balancing the cross in his hand, while 
the multitude stand hushed in breathless expec- 
tation, suddenly hurls it into the sea. The god- 
fathers plunge into the flood, and rush, in furious 
struggle with each other, to seize it and bring it 
to land. And this, this compound of absurdity, 
idolatry, indecency, and blasphemy, is "The 
Baptism of Christ !" The successful competitor 
in the struggle for the cross, after swimming 
through the circle of boats to give the women 



IN GPwEECE. 19 

and children the opportunity of kissing from it 
its dripping waters and proclaiming the perform- 
ance of a miracle, in the change of the water 
with which the cross is wet from salt to fresh, 
returns, with his clothes in one hand and the 
cross in the other, to the church, amid demon- 
strations of homage from the multitude, as to the 
peculiar godfather of Christ. 

His companions who may not have been 
drowned in the contest, as sometimes they are, 
cursing their bad fortune, come lingering behind. 
A contribution is levied on all who would share 
in the merits of the baptism, to furnish a feast to 
the administrators : a feast in wine and song, in 
drunkenness, and fighting, and downright, de- 
bauch ; and the scene is usually closed by the 
interference of the Turkish police. 

And this, says the Greek, is Christianity. And 
this, replies the disciple of the Arabian impostor, 
is Christianity. And such must we, too, add 
with sorrow, is Christianity as it now is where 
once it was preached by apostles. 

It is no matter for Avonder that Mussulman 
and Jew, however they may abhor each other, 
unite in their curses on the Christian name. And, 
verily, when the salt has so lost its savor, w^hat 
else is it good for but to be cast out and trodden 
under foot of men ? 



20 GREECE. 

But little better is the present condition 
of Christianity in the Protestant States of Eu- 
rope. 

As to the profession of it, that, as in Italy and 
Greece, is universal. And, as in those countries 
it can be said that Christianity has put an end to 
the worship of Jupiter ; so among European 
Protestant communities it can be said that it has 
put an end to the worship of the Virgin. And 
as the people everywhere profess and call them- 
selves Christians ; so the means of religious 
knowledge appear everywhere abundant. The 
eye of the traveller is met on every hand with 
churches and cathedrals ; with manses and 
episcopal palaces ; and with a ministry ample, as 
to numbers, to the utmost want of every commu- 
nity. 

But when he seeks for the fruit of Christianity ; 
when he seeks for the evidence of renovation ; 
for the evidence of the control which it exer- 
cises over selfishness, lust, ambition, pride, anger, 
jealousy, contempt, injustice, oppression, and vi- 
olence ; what else can be his conviction but that 
there also Christianity is but a form w^ithout life, 
and a name for a spirit departed ? 

With the condition of religion, as by law pro- 
fessed and established in Great Britain, most of 
my readers are probably acquainted. They have 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 21 

heard of her horse-racing and fox-hunting minis- 
try f her pluraUties and sinecures ;t her tithes, her 
fatted bishops, and her starving curates ;t her emp- 

* The following advertisement was taken from the London 
Morning Herald of April 15th, 1830: " To be sold, the next 
presentation to a vicarage, in one of the midland counties, in 
the immediate neighborhood of two of the finest packs of 
hounds in the kingdom. The present annual income, about 
jC580, subject to curate's salary. The incumbent in his 60th 
year." 

t The London Morning Chronicle of July 13th, 1824, con- 
tains an advertisement, from which it appears that the Rec- 
tories of Wanstead, Woodford, Great Paindon, Fifield, and 
Rochford, witli the Vicarages of Filstead and Raydon, pay- 
ing together, for the support of a gospel ministry, the sum 
of JC4175, or nearly twenty thousand dollars a year, were held 
by one man. 

X The following extract from the life of that pious and la- 
borious minister of the English Church, the Rev. Thomas 
Scott, the author of the Commentary, \^ illustrative : "Within 
a few months after my marriage I was led to exchange ray 
curacy of Stoke for that of Ravenstone. This was done at 
the histance of the Vicar of the latter place, the Rev. Mr. 
Chapman, an unmarried man, 70 years of age. He had 
hitherto kept no curate, but had occasionally applied to me 
for assistance ; and now, as he wished to engage one, and I 
was at this time reputable and not suspected of Methodism, 
(i. e. what we understand by a devotional piety,) he offered 
me his curacy, with a salary of £40 a year ; jC15 more than 
I received at Stoke." Twenty-five pounds a year, or some- 
thing less than ^125, then, was his support at Stoke ! Com- 
pared with this, and, as one might infer from the language 
of Goldsmith, compared with the general situation of the 
men who do the real service of the *cure' of souls, Mr. 
Scott, when at Ravenstone, " Was passing rich with forty 



22 THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 

ty churches ; her proud; prodigal, and licentious 
aristocracy,* and her ignorant and riotous popu- 
lace :t each composing a part, and all composing 

pounds a year." And this, while some of the clergy have 
thirty, forty, and even fifty thousand pounds, or two hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars per annum ! ! 

* That there are truly good men — men who are examples of 
every social and domestic virtue, and men of real piety, 
among the aristocracy of England — is beyond a doubt. 

Still there is reason to believe that the language of 
Bulwer is but too true. " They are more remarkable," he 
says, " for an extravagant recklessness of money ; for an im- 
patient ardor for frivolities ; for a headlong passion for the 
caprices, the debaucheries, the absurdities of the day, than 
for any of those prudent and considerate virtues which are 
the offspring of common sense. How few of their estates are 
not deeply mortgaged ! The Jews and the merchants have 
their grasp upon more than three parts of the property of the 
peerage." 

t With a population loaded and crushed into the very dust, 
as is that of England, by the burdens of tithes for the support 
of a ministry in which it is allowed no choice, and taxation 
for the support of a government which shows it no mercy ; 
ignorance, indeed, is anything but a crime, and insubordina- 
tion almost a virtue. " The iniquitous corn-laws," said a 
wealthy manufacturer to Lester, (see his Glory and Shame 
of England, vol. i., p. 199), " take one third of all the wages 
of the operatives from them, and put it into the pockets of 
the landholders. The commonest necessaries of life, in con- 
eequence of the bread tax, cost as much again in England as 
they do on the Continent, or in the United States : and this 
enormous revenue goes to the landed aristocracy. Besides 
this, the operative is compelled to support the Religious Estab- 
lishment. Then there are a multitude of regular or occa- 
sional taxes the poor are obliged to pay, which keeps them in 



PROTESTANT CHURCH IN PRUSSIA. 23 

the sum total of the Church of England, with a 
Charles the Second or a George the Fourth as 
the Defender of its Faith and its acknowledged 
head ! 

Of the condition of Christianity on the Con- 
tinent some judgment may be formed from its con- 
dition in what is justly deemed the most enlight- 
ened portion of it. 

" Membership in the Protestant Church of 
Prussia," says one of the most industrious and 
accurate of travellers, whose talents and toils are 
among the brightest ornaments and richest bene- 
j5ts of our country, " depends not on the state of 
the religious affections, but on the amount of Bible 
knowledge. If children are found to have suffi- 
cient knowledge of the Bible to enter the church, 
they are admitted at the age of fourteen. Tf they 

a state of the deepest depression." " The Englishman," says 
Lord Brougham, " is taxed for everything that enters the 
mouth, covers the back, or is placed under the feet : taxes are 
imposed upon everything that is pleasant to see, hear, feel, 
taste, or smell ; taxes upon warmth, light, and locomotion ; 
taxes upon everything on the earth, in the waters, and under 
the earth ; upon everything that comes from abroad, or that 
is grown at home ; taxes upon the raw material, and upon 
every value that is added to it by the ingenuity and industry 
of man." And this enormous system of taxation for the sup- 
port of the Religious and Civil establishments, forces millions 
upon millions to the utmost verge of endurance both of toil 
and penury, compared with which the condition of the South- 
em slave is a condition of opulence and ease. 



24 PRUSSIA. 

have not the requisite knowledge, they are re- 
manded to school. 

"I was taken to a school," he observes, "of 
boys and girls from fourteen to seventeen years 
of age, who Avere doing nothing but reading the 
Bible. They were vagrants from other places ; 
and were as vicious and perverse a looking com- 
pany of children as I ever saw. All over their 
countenances, in characters too legible to be mis- 
taken, were inscribed the records of malignity 
and evil passions. They had not obtained the 
amount of Bible knowledge requisite for their ad- 
mission into the church ; and Avere, therefore, 
sent here to acquire it. 

" The day for a new examination was near by, 
at which time the greater part of them w^ould 
probably be received into the church. Such re- 
ception is indispensable^ because, without a cer- 
tij&cate of confirmation from the priest, it would 
be nearly or quite impossible for any one to ob- 
tain a place as a servant, apprentice, or clerk ; or 
even to get married. 

" The consequence of all this is, that the whole 
community are members of the church. The 
gamester — in a country where gaming is a na- 
tional vice, — the drunkard, the thief, the liber- 
tine, the murderer, — alike the malefactors who are 
in prison under the sentence of the law, and the 



PRUSSIA. 25 

crafty and powerful who by force or fraud have 
eluded its judgments, — all are members of the 
Church of Christ ! Such ascendency has faith 
over practice in the eye of the law, — so much 
more important is the legal name by which the 
tree is called than the fruits which it bears."^ 

Who can wonder that Voltaire, mistaking such 
a state of things to be really the fruits of the re- 
ligion of Christ, and judging the tree by its fruits, 
dedicated his life to the extermination of it from 
the earth ; and that Prussia's own monarch be- 
came his bosom friend ? 

But is this Christianity ? Are these ecclesias- 
tical organizations, and the morals of those who 
are embraced in them, the legitimate fruit of the 
religion of Jesus Christ, and the consummation 
of what it can do for the world ? Has that re- 
ligion no commands here disregarded ? has it no 
spirit here wanting, and no motives to hohness 
here contemned ? 

Let us see. One of its inspired expounders 
has told us that ^* the grace of God that bringeth 
salvation teaches us that, denying ungodliness 
and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righte- 
ously, and godly in this present world ;" and 
that '^ our Saviour Jesus Christ gave himself for 
us tliat he might redeem us from all iniquity^ 
* Mann's Seventh Annual Report, p. 179. 

3 



26 THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH. 

and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous 
of good works P* 

Another of them has taught us that the ori- 
ginal christian church was " built up a spiritual 
house, a holy priesthood, a chosen generation, a 
peculiar people."! And a third has declared that 
Christ " was manifested to take away our sins ; 
and that whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, 
neither known him."i 

In the face of the connexion of church with 
state, Christ himself has solemnly averred that 
his ^^ kingdom is not of this world."§ 

In the face of civil and ecclesiastical interfer- 
ence with rehgious libertjT-, which has enforced 
uniformity by the terrors of confiscation, imprison- 
ment, sword, and fire, his Statute Book declares 
that '^ every one of us shall give accomif of 
himself to God ; by his own Master he shall 
stand or fall ;" and indignantly demands, " Who 
art thou that condemnest the household servant 
of another T' (Macknight's translation.) In op- 
position to birthright membership and baptismal 
regeneration is the declaration that they who are 
accounted '^ the sons of God" are such as " be- 
lieve on the name of Christ ;" and are ^'born" 
into the Christian family, " not of blood, nor of 
the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but 

* Titus ii. 12, 14. t 1 Pet. ii. 5. t 1 John iii. 5, 6. 
§ John xviii. 36. 



PRELACY UNSCRIPTURAL, 27 

of God." Andj against the gradations of rank 
in the ministry, almost everywhere estabUshed 
in the old world, — of Curate, and Rector, and 
Dean, and Priest, and Bishop, and Archbishop, 
of Suffragan, and Metropolitan ; an almost top- 
less mountain of ambition, where 

" Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise," 

from the humble pastor up to the universal 
Bishop of the triple crown, who " sitteth in the 
temple of God showing himself that he is God,"* 
the self-styled Regent of heaven, earth, and hell ; 
— against the w^hole spirit and structure of it, 
stands the rebuke of Christ : " Ye know that the 
princes of the nations domineer over them, and 
the great exercise their authority upon them. It 
must not be so amongst you : on the contrary, 
whosoever would be great amongst you, let him 
be your servant ; and whosoever would be chief 
amongst you, let him be your slave : even as the 
Son of man came not to be served, but to serve, 
aAd to give his life a ransom for many."t 

No, the religion of Christ is not to be held re- 
sponsible for these ambitious worldly establish- 
ments. They are the growth of ages of dark- 
ness, in which it was foretold by apostles " that 
Antichrist should come ;" in which ^- the mystery 
of iniquity should work ;" and " Satan should 
deceive the nations." 
* 2 Thes. ii. 4, t Matt xx. 25, 26. CampbeU's Trans. 



28 MEANS OP CORRUPTION. 

The means by which the Christianity of the 
old world has so lost its savor, deserve the careful 
enquiry of every friend of true religion in this 
country, where we have hoped that human hap- 
piness and glory are to have the opportunity of 
another trial. 

It does not seem possible that any unprejudiced 
enquirer can bring the national churches of the 
eastern continent to the test of the New Testa- 
ment model, and fail to see that they are charge- 
able with departure from that model in, at least, 
three respects : in the use of the ordinances ; in 
the terms of membership ; and in the constitu- 
tion and prerogatives of individual churches : 
any one of which, with human nature as it is, 
is sufficient to work universal corruption. 

Of this departure the Roman Catholic Church 
affects no concealment;* but claims the power 

* How clearly and decidedly the highest Roman Catholic 
authorities speak on " the original mode of baptism" may be 
judged from such writers as Father Mabillon, Muratori, &c. 
Lewis Antony Muratori, Librarian to the Duke of Modena, 
an author of 46 folio volumes ; * a man,' says Robinson, * to be 
had in everlasting remembrance for the extent of his knowl- 
edge, the indefatigableness of his application, the refinement 
of his understanding, and the accuracy of his taste ;' in the 
4th vol. of his antiquities of the Middle Ages of Italy, speaking 
of the rites of the church of St. Ambrose at Milan, and of the 
Ambrosian method of trine immersion, says, *' The priests pre- 
serve a shadow of the ancient form of baptizing, for they do 
not baptize by pouring, as Romans do : but, taking the infant 



E.OMAN CHURCH, 29 

to make such changes. And the Oxford party 
in the Episcopal Church do not profess to look 
to the primitive churches for pattern, but to the 

in their hands, they dip the hinder part of his head three times 
in the baptismal water, in the form of a cross : which is a 
vestige yet remaining of the most ancient and universal 
practice of immersion.^* 

Father Mabillon, a Frenchman by birth, a Benedictine 
Monk by profession, who spent a great part of his life in his- 
torical researches concerning the church in France, Germany, 
and Italy, in a work called " Acta Sanctorum," on the Acts 
of the Saints of his order, in 9 volumes folio, speaking of a 
certain St. Liudger, says that " although there is mention made 
in his Hfe of baptizing a little infant by pouring on holy water, 
yet it was contrary to an express canon of the ninth cen- 
tury ; contrary to the canon given by Stephen ;* contrary to 
the general practice in France where trine immersion was used ; 
contrary to the practice of the Spaniards, who used single im- 
mersion ; and contrary to the practice of many who continued 
to dip till the fifteenth century." For each of these positions 
he gives his authorities. 

Paul Maria Paciaudi, Librarian to the Puke of Parma, 
and one of the most learned antiquaries of the last century, 

* He alludes to a rule given by Pope Stephen HI. in the year 754* 
That Pope had been obliged, by the danger Rome was in from the king 
of the Lombards, to flee into France to seek assistance from Pepin. 
While there, some monks consulted him on different matters relating to 
the church. He gave his opinion on 19 questions. One of the ques- 
tions proposed was, Whether, in case of necessity, by illness of an infant, 
it were lawful to baptize by pouring water out of the hands, or a cup, 
on the head of the infant 7 Stephen answered: "If such a baptism 
were performed, in such a case of necessity, in the name of the Holy 
Trinity, it should be held valid." It should be remembered that the de- 
cisions of Popes are laws for the church for all coming time ; and that 
an order of a council is as valid, in the eye of a Catholic, as an apos- 
tolical canon. Hence he is not shocked at finding that a ceremony 13 
neither scriptural nor ancient. 

3* 



■^0 THE REFORMATION INCOMPLETE. 

state of things which existed in the fourth cen- 
tury : regarding Christianity as a tree planted 
by Christ and his apostles, but the fruit of which 
required three hundred years to ripen ! 

The Reformation, w^iich called the national 
Protestant Churches into being, or rather modi- 
fied the form of national establishments previous- 
ly existing, was left by the Reformers incomplete ; 
as has been acknowledged by many of the most 
enhghtened of their communions ; and little or 
nothing has been amended since Luther, and 

in a work which was pubhshed by authority at Rome, and 
dedicated to Pope Benedict XIV., in speaking of the two bap- 
tisteries at Ravenna, which, of late years, it has become so 
common with a certain class of polemics to refer to, in evi- 
dence on the primitive mode of baptism, exclaims against the 
representation in the following terms : '* At quae monstra 
nuntiant ejusmodi emblemata ! Numquid Christus Dominus 
adspersione baptizatus ? Tantum abest a vero ut nihil magis 
vero possit esse contrarium : sed errori, et inscientiae pictorum 
tribuendum, qui quum historiarum ssepe sint ignari, vel quia 
quidlibet audendi potestatem sibi factam credunt, res, quas 
effingunt, mirifice aliquando depravant : alter ex altero exem- 
plum sumat, nee prioris errata posterior apta correctione devi- 
tet. But what monstrous things are emblems of this sort I 
Was Christ the Lord baptized by aspersion ? So far is that 
from truth that nothing can be more contrary to truth : but it 
is to be attributed to the error and ignorance of painters, who, 
as they are often ignorant of the histories, or because they 
think a certain license is allowed them, wonderfully vitiate 
sometimes the things they represent : one copies from another, 
nor does the latter show by a suitable correction the errors of 
the former." 



THE REFOP^MATION INCOMPLETE. 31 

Calvirij and Knox, and Cranmer, ceased from 
their labors. The commissioners who were ap- 
pointed in the reign of Charles II. to revise the 
liturgy of the English Church, '^ desire that it 
raay he considered that the first Reformers^ 
out of their great wisdom^ did, at that time, 
compose the liturgy so as to loiii upon the 
Papists ; and to draio them into their church 
communion by verging as little as they could 
from the forms before in use /''* 

Attempts, it is well known, were made on the 
Continent, to bring the churches with which the 
work of reform had begun, to a closer conformity 
to the New Testament model, which the Reform- 
ers themselves opposed ; although they acknow- 
ledged their own nonconformity to that model ! 

Calvin acknowledged, for example, that the 

* Taylor says the English reformers never wished to com- 
plete the reformation in any such sense as would carry the 
churches back to the simple New Testament model ; but 
rather that it was their wish to reach the position which, in 
fact, the Oxford party are aiming at. " What the English 
reformers had in view, was Ancient Christianity, or the 
doctrine, and discipline, and ritual of the Nicene age (i.e., the 
4th century) ; and so far as the altered condition of the so- 
cial system, and so far as the secular despotism allowed them 
to follow their convictions, they realized their idea ; and 
probably would have done so to the extent of a close imita- 
tion, had it been possible, of all but the more offensive fea- 
tures of that early system." — Taylor'' s Ancient Christianity, 
Phila. ed. p. 31. 



32 

original terms of the apostolic commission re- 
quire immersion, and were so understood by the 
ancient Church :* and yet he directed the use 

* The following extracts from his writings, (a full transla- 
tion of which our space forbids), on the meaning of the words 
of Christ, on the practice of the primitive church, on the quali- 
fication prerequisite to a reception of the ordinance, on tho 
obligation to adhere strictly to the Saviour's command, and 
on the wickedness — the impia et nimis crassa profanatio— of 
applying the ordinance to any one who is without faith ; pre- 
sent a painful contrast between his knowledge of his Master's 
will and his practice : — ^between the institutes of Christ and 
the institutes of Calvin. 

" The word itself (used m the command of Christ) signi- 
fies to immerse, and the rite was performed by John and 
Christ by the submersion of the whole body — a rite well 
known to have been observed by the ancient church : — to 
apply it to one without faith, of which it is the seal, is an im- 
pious and gross profanation. But / say that the children of 
the pious are born sons of the church : and though the rite 
clearly was performed among the ancients by the immersion 
of the whole body in water, it is a valid custom, now, that 
the minister besprinkles the body or the head only." 

Can it be a matter of wonder, since the Genevese must 
shape their religion by the " dico " of a mortal, that they 
should prefer a Catholic pope to a Protestant one? For the 
present state of things at Geneva, see note, p. 40. 

Quod ad externum symbolum pertinet, utinam genuina 
Christi institutio valuisset, quantum par erat ad cohibendam 

hominum audiciam Etsi autem me non latet, quam 

vetusta sit adventitise hujus farraginis origo, respuere tamen 
mihi et piis omnibus fas est, quicquid ad Christi institutioneni 

addere ausi sunt homines Quibus experimentis (scil. 

benedictio, chrisma, exsufflatio, &c.) discamus, nihil vel sanc- 
tius esse vel melius vel tutius quam unius Christi auctoritate 



Calvin's acknowledgement. 33 

of sprinkling, as though that were an act of obe- 
dience to Christ to do one thing when he had 
commanded another ! And the fathers of the 
Church of Scotland^ and of the Independent 
Churches of England, adopted '^ the form ap- 
proved by that famous, godly, learned man, 
John Calvin," instead of that which " godly 
John Calvin" acknowledged to have been com- 

contentos esse Cselerum mergaturne totius qui lingitur, 

idque ter an semel, an infusa tantum aqua aspergatur, mini- 
mum refert : sed id pro regionum diversitate ecclesiis liberum 
esse debet. Quanquam et ipsum haptizandi verbum mergere 
significat, ritum veteri ecclesiae observatum fuisse constat. — 
Inst. Lib. iv. cap. 15. § 19. 

Cseterum ex his verbis colligere licet, baptismum fuisse 
celebratum a Johanne et Christo totius corporis submersione. 
Quanquam de externo ritu minus anxie laborandum est, modo 
cum spirituali veritate et Domini institute ac regula congruat. 
— Comment, in Joann. iii. 23. 

Acta 8 — 37. " Si credis ex toto corde," &lc. Quod non ad- 
mittitur eunuchus ad baptismum nisi fidem professus, hinc 
sumenda est universalis regula, Non ante recipiendos esse in 
Ecclesiam, qui ab ea prius fuerant alieni, quam ubi testati 
fuerint Christo se credere. Est enim Baptismus quasi iidei 
appendix, ideoque ordine posterior est. Delude sidatur sine 
fide, cujus est sigillum, et impia et nimis crassa est profanatio. 
.... Sicut antem adultos fide inseri certum est, ita piorum 
liberos dico Ecclesiae filios nasci et ab utero reputari in Christi 
membris, quia hac lege nos Deus adoptat, ut sit etiam semi- 
nis nostri pater. — Acta viii. 37. 

'* Descenderunt in aquam." Hie perspicuus, quisnam apud 
eteres baptizandi ritus fuerit, totum enim corpus in aquam 



34 RETENTION OF POPISH ERRORS. 

manded by Jesus Christ. And Luther not only- 
acknowledged the true import of the Saviour's 
command, but, in his German version, correctly 
translated it:^ and then left the rehgious con- 

mergebant : nunc invaluit usus, ut minister corpus vel caput 
tantum aspergat. — Acta viii. 38. 

* During the agitation, in the American Bible Society, of 
the question which had so deplorable an issue — the question 
whether the words expressive of the ordinance of baptism 
should be translated in the versions of the Scriptures which 
are given to the heathen — the Baptist members argued that 
even consistency required their translation, inasmuch as the 
Society was printing and circulating Luther's version, and 
others, in which these words were translated. The argument 
was met by a denial that the words employed by Luther con- 
veyed any such idea as immersion. As this denial, first 
made, so far as we are aware, by Dr. Henderson, has been 
repeated with so much confidence as to have given the matter 
almost the air of a settled question ; it may be well, in this 
place, to show on what authority the assertion was then 
made by members of that Society, and is here repeated. 

The word (taufen) employed by Luther differs slightly in its 
orthography and sound from that (tauchen) now employed in 
German to express immersion ; and is used, now, only in its 
ecclesiastical acceptations. It may therefore, to a common, un- 
lettered German mind of the present day, convey no other 
idea than that which corresponds to the practice of the Ger- 
man churches. It was on this ground, probably, that the de- 
nial was made by Dr. Henderson on the other side of the 
water, and echoed on this. 

But the question is, not what an unlettered German, who 
now never sees or hears anything of the word but in connec- 
tion with the act of sprinkling, understands by it ; but what 



UNDER THE REFORMATION LUTIIER. 35 

science of Germany to struggle, as best it could, 
between conviction of duty to Christ, and the 
necessity of obedience to the secular power ; from 

is its proper signification as it was once in common use ? and 
what did Luther understand by it ? 

On these questions the following authorities are conclusive. 

1st, On the meaning of Luther^s word, taufen. 

Heinsius, in his large German Dictionary, 4 vols., Hano- 
ver, 1818 — 1822, says, " Taufen signifies, in a general sense, 
to plunge into water or any other fluid : (as a bomb dipped 
(getauft) in pitch and rosin:) in a more limited sense, to im- 
merse in water in a religious way." And then he adds — as 
any lexicographer would of course — a definition corresponding 
to present usage, viz. : " in the Christian Church, to wet one 
with water in a solemn manner as a sign of moral purifica- 
tion, and thereby receive him into the fellowship of Christians.*' 

Kaltschmidt, in his large 4to. German Lexicon, Leipsic, 
1834 : " Taufen, to immerse (eintauchen) ; to consecrate to 
Christianity ; to name." Here we see the same method,-— 
first, giving the proper signification of the word, that is to say, 
its literal meaning, and then a definition which conforms to 
present practice. 

2nd, Its correspondence with the word, in present use. 

SxMiTTHENNER, in his Etymological Dictionary published in 
1834, says, " Taufen, in old German toufjan, from toufa, 
which signifies Tiefe ; (i. e. the deep) consequently it means to 
immerse." 

ScnwENCK, in his Etymological Dictionary (3rd edition, 
1838), says, '* Taufen, to immerse in water ; specially, to puri- 
fy with water for admission to the Christian Church. — Taufen 
is the same (etymologically) as tauchen," i. e. to dip. 

Genthe, in his German Synonymes, 1838, says, p. 278 : 
** Tauchen and taufen were originally the same. The act 
expressed by taufen was performed by immersion (untertau^ 



36 RETENTION OF POPISH ERRORS 

subjection to, and dependence on which, he for- 
bid the churches to emancipate themselves. 
But not only was there this acknowledged 

chcn). At present the word taufen retains its proper signifi- 
cation, to overwhelm with water, only in the figurative ex- 
pression, * Geiranke taufen,^ (to baptize strong drinks) by 
pouring water upon them in the glass." 

WiEGAND, in his German Synonymes, published at Mayence, 
1840 — 3, in 3 vols. — a work considered by Dr. Sears, of Newton, 
to whose kindness and invaluable German library I am in- 
debted for these authorities, to be the most learned, as it is the 
latest, — says, " Taufen, originally equivalent to untertauchen 
(to dip under), signifies in its religious use toimmerse in water.''* 
Pie then proceeds to give his authorities : and among them, it 
will be obseved, he quotes Luther.—" So, for example, the 
Jews baptized (tauften) the heathen before receiving them by 
circumcision ; so John the Baptist ( Taufer) baptized (tavfte) 
into Christ ; and so the first Christians were baptized {getauft)J* 
In a note, he quotes in confirmation of his statement, Luther's 
translation of II. Kings v. 14: " Then he went down and dip- 
ped himself {tavfte sick) seven times in Jordan." Also the fol- 
lowing sentences from early German writers, viz. " Dip (tau-- 
fen) the balls in melted sulphur and pitch." Feuerbach. — 
" The Strymon, in which the flock of cranes dip (tauft) their 
crooked wings." Opitz. — In volume ii. p. 478, he says, on the 
word tief (deep), that "it is of the same root with taufen, 
which properly signifies to put under water." 

3d, The direct and explicit testimony of Luther himself. 

The following too literal to be elegant translation of a pas- 
gage in a sermon on " the Sacrament of Baptism" may be 
found in Walch's edition of liis works, vol. x. p. 2593. " Al- 
though, in many places, it is no longer the practice to thrust 
children entirely into the water and dip them, but merely to 
pour water on them with the hand, nevertheless it ought so to 



UNDEH, THE REFOFcMATION LUTHER. 37 

departure from the New Testament model as to 
the ordinance itself ^ but as to the subject to 
which it was appKed. And the embarrassment 
which was thus created in tender minds, must 
have been greatly increased by being first told, 
as by Luther they were told, that '-it cannot be 
proved by the sacred Scripture that Infant Bap- 
tism was instituted by Christ, or begun by the 
first Christians after the apostles ;" and then for- 
bidden to neglect the application of it to their 
children, or to remedy the error in a profession 
of their own faith — however important a strict 
adherence to the Scriptures might be to them as 
*• the answer of a good conscience," — on peril of 
persecution and death as anabaptists.* 

be ; and it would be riglit, if the child, or any one who is to 
be baptized {getaufi), should, according to the meaning of the 
word (i. e. according to the meaning of the German word taiife), 
be entirely sunken in the water and baptized {geiauft), and taken 
out again. For the word iavfe in German, comes undoubtedly 
from the word Tief (deep), inasmuch as we sink deep (tief) 
in the water whatever we baptize (iaufen).'* 

We beg pardon of the reader for detaining him so long with 
these references : but a man must sometimes wade both through 
lumber and through rubbish in these days if he would get at 
the truth. 

* "Bishop Burnet (Hist, of the Reformation, ii. p. 176,) at- 
tributes the rise of the Bapti.»ts of Germany, to their carrying 
out the principles of Luther regarding the sufficiency of the 
Scriptures and the rights of private judgment. In this the 

4 



38 KETENTION OF POPISH ERRORS I 

The religious feelings, when thoroughly waked, 
are the strongest in human nature. The eternal, 
the invisible, the mysterious, and the holy, give 
them a power which, if resisted by a questioned 
authority, rushes on over every barrier with the 
impetuosity of a cataract ; till, at length, reason 
and conscience themselves are borne away and 
overwhelmed in the eddying abyss. 

And thus it was in Germany, in the Low 
Countries, and in Switzerland. Thousands, no 
doubt, forbidden to follow out some of the clear- 
est commands of Scripture, proceeded, at first, on 
the simple • determination to obey God rather 
than man ; but, in the excitement and peril of 
that determination, they ran into the wildest ex- 
cesses; and brought upon themselves a swift, 
and history has declared, a ^merited destruction. 
A verdict which we undertake not to dispute. 
But we do believe that if the reformers had 
acted frankly and fully on the principle that 
'^ the Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion 
of Protestants," the page of history would never 



Catholic writers agree with him, who charge Luther with be- 
ing the father of the German Baptists, and say that when he 
presented them, * he let out the life of his own cause.' Those 
Baptists themselves declared that they learned their princi- 
ples from Luther." — See Mr, Hague's Historical Discourse, 
p. 66 



CONSEQUENT STP^UGGLES AND EXCESSES. 39 

have been stained with the blood of Munster, or 
darkened with the fanaticism of St. Gall. 

The observation of Merle d'Aubigne is in 
general true, though the history of the reforma- 
tion seems hardly to sustain it, that ''such 
opinions, as were entertained by those men, are 
not to be expelled by whippings, nor drowned 
in the waters into which those who profess 
them may be cast; that they again come forth 
from the depth of the abyss, and the fire but 
serves to kindle, in those who adhere to them, a 
fiercer enthusiasm and thirst for martyrdom." 

The wars of the holy alliance of church and 
state, however, w^ere finally successful : the fires 
of fanaticism were quenched in blood, and the 
voice of wearied truth was silenced. 

The doctrine of the Church of Rome, that men 
are brought into a state of salvation by baptism, 
for a time in jeopardy, was again everywhere es- 
tablished ; and the Church sat down under the 
shadow of the State to fatten and sleep on its 
bounty, and to repay it with giving to its chil- 
dren, though slaves of sin, the name of Christian 
and the hope of heaven. 

Thus ended ''The Reformation." As to 
faith, in Geneva* it has ended in Socinianism: 



* The condition and prospects of Geneva at the present 
time are truly melancholy. And they furnish a sad comment 



40 Rl TENTION OF POPISH ERRORS : 

in Germanyj in Rationalism ; in France, which 
put out its earliest light in the massacre of 
St. Bartholomews, in open and utter infidelity. 

on the liberty which those have taken with Christ's com- 
mands, whom he had delivered from Papal darkness, and 
called to lift on high the lamp of his pure word for the gui- 
dance of mankind. We have already shown, elsewhere, the gla- 
ring inconsistency between the admissions, and the prescrip- 
tions of the Genevan reformer: — between the institute of 
Christ and the institutes of Calvin : and have spoken of the 
injury which must be expected to result to conscience and 
character from ' breaking, and teaching men to break,' the 
commands of Christ. But the following extracts from a work 
recently published in Glasgow, entitled, Notices of the State 
of Religion in Geneva and Belgium, for which I am indebted 
to a note of the admirable ' address' of Rev. Dr. Williams on The 
Conservative Principle of our Literature, present so forcibly the 
consequences of a violation, by Protestants, of the fundamen- 
tal principle of Protestantism, that I cannot but commend them 
to the attention of my readers. " In the Genevese territory 
itself, the progress of Popery is rapid beyond all precedent. 
For a long period subsequent to the Reformation, there could 
have been few, if any, resident Catholics within the territory. 
A great and rapid change has recently taken place. During 
the long occupation of Geneva by the French, that is from 
1798 to 1814, both infidel and Popish influence made alarm- 
ing progress. In the latter year, a small additional territory 
was annexed, by treaty, to Geneva, and being taken from 
Savoy, the population was entirely Catholic. It was at this 
period that the Roman Catholic religion won the support of the 
State, equally with the Protestant. From that time the activity 
of the Popish clergy and their party has been unremitting ; 
and by the formation of schools, by domiciliary visitation, by 
public processions, by preaching, by the press, they are straining 



THE CONSEQUENCES. 41 

And, as to morals, it has ended just where it be- 
gan : in wide-spread Ucentiousness and loathe- 



every nerve to reduce long rebellious Geneva to her abjured 
allegiance to the See of Rome. Far from attempting to con- 
ceal their eiForts, their object, and their confident expectations, 
they glory in avowing them ; they already exult in their an- 
ticipated success ; and, with too large a proportion of such a 
population as they have to do with, confidence is regarded as 
the prestige of victory. It is not long since the Popish party 
modestly requested that the chief church in Geneva, Calvin's 
church, the cathedral itself, should be restored to them. Ex- 
cept when the eclat of a communion attracts a throng of Uni- 
tarian formalists, the cathedral, we have seen, is nearly empty 
at the usual worship of the Sabbath ; and the cold of winter is 
such an overmatch for Unitarian ardor, that during that season 
they surrender their cathedral, without a sigh, to the undis- 
turbed possession of the fogs and frosts, inviting the few wor- 
shippers who are not quite benumbed, to assemble in a small and 
more comfortable place adjoining. The Roman Catholics sought 
the restoration of a place of worship for which the Protestants 
appear to have so little need, accompanying the request with the 
sacrastic intimation, that they would keep the cathedral open 
all the year round, and that their numbers w^ould keep it 
warm enough even during the winter's cold. The clergy, it 
is said, avow their conviction, that the question of occupancy 
is but a question of time ; that there is no doubt that Geneva 
will soon be their own again ; and remark with good homor, 
that the Protestant motto will require no change, and will 
soon be fulfilled in another sense than that in which its au- 
thors meant it — ' After darkness, light ."* The progress of 
tho Popish population, completes the danger. By the annex- 
ation of the new territory, and also by a perpetual immigration 

* " Post tenebras, lux," the motto oa the escutcheon and coin of 
Geneva, 

4* 



42 r.ETElCTION OF TOPISH ERRORS: 

some corruption, in which not only infideUty must 
be baptized and hcentiousness sit at the table of 

of poor Savoyards, in quest of the comforts of Geneva (like 
Hibernian immigration into Britain), the Roman Catholics have 
now upwards of 27,000 out of a population ratlier under 
60,000 ; and during the last five years, the Catholic popula- 
tion increased by three thousand, while that of the Protestants 
diminished by two hundred, the former by immigration into 
the territory, the latter by emigration from it. That advan- 
cing minority will become, and probably will soon become, an 
actual majority, and then, suffrage being universal, Geneva 
may, by the vote of a majority of her citizens, lose her rank 
among Protestant states, renounce by open profession the 
Protestantism which in fact her ministers and her people have 
already betrayed, and re-annex herself to Rome. * « * * 
They have Unitarianism established already, and Catholicism 
virtually eslablished along with it, with the near prospect of 
its arriving at an ascendency, possibly an exclusive ascend- 
ency." These are not the hasty and ill-advised opinions of 
a foreign visitant, after the lapse of a few days of hurried ob- 
servation. He quotes from a publication of the distinguished 
Merle D'Aubigne, the author of the v/ell known History of 
the Reformation. In a work of his, "Xa Question de VE- 
glise" that eminent man, himself a resident of Geneva, says : 
** The faith of our fathers made Rome tremble at the name 
of Geneva ; now, alas ! Geneva trembles at the name of 
Rome. * * * Are we sure that Popery, triumphant, and 
perched upon our high towers, will not one day, and quickly, 
mock with bitter derision, the blindness of our citizens? The 
air is heavy, the atmosphere is choking, the night, perhaps 
the tempest, approaches. Let us enter then into our bosoms 
• — let us reflect in that inner temple, and raising our cry- 
to heaven, let us say, O God, save the country, for men come 
to destroy it. * * * * * Rome cannot change. All 



THE CONSEQUENCES. 43 

the Lord, but, in some of the Protestant churches, 
prostitutes themselves pursue their trade of sin 
and death by ecclesiastical authority ! 

Of the state of morals, in the continental 
churches, what has been akeady said must 
suffice. Of that under the administration of 
the EngUsh Church, particularly, it may be 
sufficient to refer to the well-known fact that, 
with an annual income at her disposal for the 
promotion of religion, of more than forty millions 
of dollars,* the mass of her people, at the time 
when Whitefield and Wesley began those labors 
in which they were so blessed of God and so 
cursed by the Establishment, were, though nomi- 
nal Christians, in a state of practical heathen- 
ism.t And so, with exceptions due only to the 

around us she advances. She builds altar after altar upon the 
banks of our lake. The progress is such amongst us, from 
the facility which strangers have in acquiring the right of 
citizenship, that quickly (every one acknowledges it) the 
Romish population will exceed the Protestant population of 
Geneva. * * * * Let Rome triumph at Rome, it is 
natural. Let Rome, as she assures herself, triumph at Oxford ; 
the conquest will be great. But let Rome triumph at Geneva, 
then she will raise a cry that will echo to the extremity of the 
universe. Genevese ! that cry will announce to the world the 
death of your country." 

* The " salaries" of the English clergy amount to more than 
those of the whole world beside ! 

t " It is to be lamented, as a scandal to Christianity, that 
whoredom and adultery, theft and rapine, lying and swearing, 



44 RETENTION OF POPISH ERROES : 

influence of an evangelism which her mUng 
powers are always stigmatizing as methodistic 
and fanatical, do they remain to this day. 

Having adopted, like the Papal Church, the 
dogma that there is no salvation out of the 
Church and no damnation in it,* she would 

bearing false witness, and coveting what belongs to others, are 
now become almost as common among Christians as they were 
formerly among heathens." — Dr. Whithy on the Necessity of 
the Christian Revelation, p. 35 of Lond. Ed. 1705. 

* " Baptism should not be administered but upon Sundays, 
Nevertheless, if necessity so require, children may be baptized 
upon any other day." . ..." In case of extrcfine danger," 
baptism may be " privately used " by pouring : and " calling 
upon God, and saying the Lord's prayer, and so many of the 
collects as the time and present exigence will suffer ;" and the 
child is held to be " sufficiently baptized " provided the rite 
has been administered by " a lawful minister ;" no dissenter 
from the Episcopal church being acknowledged as such. 

Of the virtue of baptism the following is sufficiently ex- 
pressive : " Doubt not that he (Christ) will give unto him (the 
child) the blessing of eternal life, and make him partaker 

of his everlasting kingdom Dearly beloved, ye have 

brought this child here to be baptized ; ye have prayed that 
our Lord Jesus Christ would vouchsafe to receive him, to 
release him of his sins, to sanctify him with the Holy 
Ghost, to give him the kingdom of heaven and everlasting 
life. Ye have heard also that our Lord Jesus Christ hath 
promised in his gospel to grant all those things tha,t ye 
have prayed for ; which promise he, for his part, will surely 

keep and perform We yield thee heaity thanks, most 

merciful Father, that it hath pleased thee to regenerate 
this infant with thy Holy Spirit, to receive him for thine 
own child by adoption, and to incorporate him into thy holy 



THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 45 

rather that the benighted should remain in igno- 
rance and the vile unreformed, than that, in 
coming to the light, they should renounce her 
authority, and in forsaking their sins renounce 
her baptism. 

In Westminster, the very seat of her power, and 
residence of her royal Head, she had provided 
church accommodation for not more than one in 
ten; and, ofone thousand six hundred andfifty-five 
families, one thousand three hundred and ^7i'e7i- 
^y-yb?ir were recently ascertained to be living in the 
habitual neglect of public worship. Of three hun- 
dred and two shops in this district, tico hundred 
and tioentij-Jive were open for trade on the Sab- 
bath. Of twenty-seven houses directly under the 
shadow of Westminster Abbey, belonging to the 
Dean and Chapter of the Abbey, nearly the whole 
are houses of ill fame ; and have been so occupied 

church." — Baptismal Service. Let us now pass * from the 
cradle to the grave:' " Forasmuch as it hath pleased Al- 
miglity God, of his great mercy, to take unto himself the soul 
of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his 
body to the ground ; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to 
dust, in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal 
life." — Burial Service, Book of Common Prayer, Oxford 
edition, 1781. 

With a certificate of a valid baptism, the memory of the 
Bishop's confirmation, and faith in the 11th article, a baptized 
sinner must feel, as to his own condition, pretty comfortable : 
but if there be any pity in his breast he cannot contemplate 
the everlasting state of such men els Fuller, and Ryland, and 
Watts, and Doddridge, without compassion and terror. 



46 RELIGIOUS HISTORY OP 

during the memory of the oldest inhabitants. And, 
in the leases granted by the said Dean and Chap- 
ter, is inserted the prohibition to ^^ build, or erect, or 
suffer to be built or erected, any chapel or meeting 
house for any separate congregation of people dis- 
senting from the Church of England; or to suffer 
any messuage or tenement to be used for any such 
chapel or meeting house :"^ showing that, in the 
estimxation of these Episcopal functionaries, the 
worship of Venus and the rites of lust are less 
polluting than would be the prayers of a Pearce, 
the praise of a Watts, the teachings of a Fuller, 
or the eloquence of a Robert Hall. 

To some, at least, of the causes by which 
Christianity has so lost its savor in other lands, 
must we attribute its ineflBcacy in our own. 
The people of this country are emigrants and 
descendants of emigrants from countries and re- 
ligious establishments of whose condition we 
have been spealcing. And, at a period not very 
remotely past, the scions of Episcopacy in Virgin- 
ia, of Popery in Maryland, of Lutheramsm in 
Pennsylvania, of the Dutch Church in New 
York, and of Independency in New England, 
might scarcely be distinguished, in anything but 
magnitude, from the stocks from which they 
were severally taken. 

The best and purest of them all was certainly 

* See Vaughn on Congregationalism. 



THIS COUNTRY. 47 

the branch which was planted by the Pilgrims. 
And it certainly would seem, that if ever Christi- 
anity had a fair opportunity since the days of the 
apostles to establish its institutions in tlieir purity, 
and to maintain its efficacy, it had an opportu- 
nity here. 

But the truth is. and we would speak it kind- 
ly, and cLs gently as such truth can be spoken — 
for we also are descendants of the Pilgrims — that 
although they rejected most of the errors of the 
Papal church, with the Prelatical feature of the 
English church, they retained in their system 
the great error so fatal to the spirituahty of all 
the churches of the old world : that of Infant 
baptism and Christian birthright : and, by this, 
built up their ecclesiastical structures vrith un- 
converted material. Having begun with a 
fundamental error, they were soon called on, by 
those who remembered the charge of their im- 
mortal Robinson, or of spirit like him, who were 
" confident that the Lord had more truth and 
light yet to break forth out of his holy word,'** 

* '• Governor Winslow tells ns," says Prince, ** that when 
the Plimouth people Parted from their Renowned Pastor, 
with whom they had always liv'd in the most intire Affection ; 
He charged us before God and his Bilessed Angels to follow 
Him no farther than He followed Christ : And if God should 
reveal anything to us by any other Instrument of his, to be as 
ready to receive it as ever we were to receive any Truth by 
his Ministry : For he was very confident the Lord had more 



48 THE PILGRIMS. 

either to abandon that errorj or defend it : they* 
chose the latter : and, setting themselves in array- 
again st liberty of conscience, called the civil power 
to their aid ; and sought by proscription, banish- 
ment, and death, to arrest the progress of '• truth 
and light." 

Thus the little pilgrim churches of New Eng- 
land, imitating the cumbrous establishments of 
the old world, paused in the work of improve- 
ment where their leaders left them ; and, stereo- 

Trutli and Light yet to break forth out of his Holy Word. 
He took Occasion miserably to bewail the State of the Re- 
formed Churches, who were come to a Period in Religion, 
and wou'd go no further than the Instruments of their Re- 
formation. As for Example, the Lutherans cou'd not be 
drawn to go be3^ond what Luther saw ; for whatever Part 
of God's Word He had further revealed to Calvin they had 
rather Die than embrace it : and so said He, you see the 
Calvinists, they stick where he left them, A Misery much to 
be lamented : for tho' they were precious, shining Lights in 
their Times ; yet God had not revealed his whole W^ill to 
them : And were they now alive, said He, they wou'd be as 
ready to receive further Light as that they had received. 
Here also He put us in mind of our Church-Covenant ; 
whereby we engaged with God and one another to receive 
whatever Light or Truth shou'd be made known to us from 
his Written Word. But withal exhorted us to take heed 
what we receive for Truth ; and well to examine, compare 
and weigh it with other Scriptures before we receive it. 
For said He, It is not possible the Christian World shou'd come 
so lately out of such Antichrislian Darkness, and that full 
Perfection of Knowledge should brake forth at once.'* — 
Prince's Chronology, Boston, N. E., MDCCXXXVI. p. 89. 



NEW ENGLAND DEFECTION. 49 

typing the page of reformation with all remain- 
ing errors, sent it onward to posterity. 

How appropriate to the Congregational church- 
es of New England, and to the present tenden- 
cies of things among those who have been train- 
ed under their influence, is the language of Je- 
hovah to Israel ! ^^ Of old time I have broken 
thy yoke and burst thy bonds ; and thou saidst, 
I will not transgress. I planted thee a noble vine, 
wholly a right seed. How, then, art thou turned 
into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto 
me. The children of Noph and Taphenes have 
broken the crown of thy head. Hast thou not 
procured this unto thyself, in that thou hast for- 
saken the Lord thy God when he led thee by 
the way ? And now what hast thou to do any 
more in the way of Egypt to drink the waters 
of Sihor ? Or what hast thou to do in the way 
of Assyria to drink the waters of the river ?"* 

It cannot be wondered at, certainly, that the 
genuine heirs of " the old standing order" of 
things should so resolutely protest against the 
fondness which the present generation is mani- 
festing for those waters ; but it is a marvel that 
they never seem to suspect that the appetite is 
due to the nursing. 

The change which has taken place in the re- 
ligious state of New England is easily accounted 

* Jer. ii. 20, &c. 

5 



50 NEW ENGLAND DEFECTION. 

for. The defection from orthodoxy, the in- 
creasing fondness for Episcopacy, the prevalence 
of UniversaHsm and infideUty, the consequent 
neglect of reUgious worship, and the degeneracy 
we deplore, are simply effects from causes. With- 
out a miracle it could not have been otherwise. 

It could not be but that the means which have 
been resorted to for concealing truth, and for the 
suppression of its influence where it could not be 
hid, should have a fatal effect on the interests of 
vital Christianity. 

It ought not to be matter of wonder if, after 
the community had been taught to shut their 
eyes against a precept the meaning of which 
even a Pedobaptist version* of it could not dis- 
guise ; many of them should fail to discover a 
doctrine which, though clearly stated, no man 
can comprehend. 

It ought not to be wondered at if, when an 
appeal is made to authority, and even to pride, 

* By far the greater portion of those who have embraced 
Baptist sentiments, both in this country and in Great Britain, 
have been led into them, not by any knowledge of the original 
Scriptures, for they knew but their mother tongue ; not by 
their religious teachers certainly, for they taught a different 
doctrine ; but by the simple, conscientious, prayerful study 
of our English Bible. And our English Bible is a translation 
made by Pedobaptists under the direction of a monarch and 
of an Archbishop who forbid them to translate the words 
which relate to the initiatory christian ordinance. 



ACCOUNTED FOR. 51 

against the dictates of conscience in our duty to 
God, conscience in religious matters should come 
at length to have little to do ; and pride and 
convenience should supply her place. 

It ought not to be wondered at if. when the 
ministers of religion teach for doctrines what the 
intelligent among their hearers have learned to 
be but the commandments of men ; and resort 
to every sort of hypothesis, interpretation, and 
quibble to give them the authority of the word 
of God ; that some of their hearers should come 
to feel a partiality for churches where tradition is 
authority ; and that others should lose their con- 
fidence not only in the ministry, but in religion it- 
self 

Nor should it be a matter of surprise if, when 
in the very training of that ministry, they are 
taught to direct their future labors by considera- 
tions of convenience and policy rather than by 
the simple commands of their Master, that they 
should select for their ecclesiastical connexion a 
form of religion which the aristocracy of wealth 
and fashion have selected before them. 

Having spoken of the fact of the inoperative- 
ness of Christianity, and its causes^ we proceed 
to a statement of the conditions we consider 
necessary to its efficacy, so far as that efficacy 
has been made to depend on human instrumen- 
tality. 



52 I\IEAXS OF KESTORING CHRISTIANITY. 

1st. The word of God must be restored to its 
supremacy. The inspired scriptures must be 
made the exclusive rule of faith and practice; 
and all tradition and conjecture, and conveni- 
ence, and partiahty, and prejudice, and worldly 
interest, must be made to defer to that divine au- 
thority. All else, in the guidance of religious 
duty, must be held as a dream or a fancy. 

Attempts to control mankind with bulls, and 
decrees of councils, and legends of saints, and 
traditions received from the fathers, must be met 
with appeal to the Bible : " to the law and to the 
testimony :" and mankind must be made to un- 
derstand that if religious teachers ^^ speak not 
according to this word it is because there is no 
light in them." The conviction must be wrought 
in the minds of people and ministry that to wrest 
or disguise its meaning is to incur the frown of 
its Author. It must be made " quick and pow- 
erful" to fear, as well as inspiring to hope ; and 
conscience must be educated by its commands. 

2nd. The ministry must be restored, both as to 
its dignity and its authority, to its true position. 

The office of the minister of the gospel is that 
of shepherd and bishop of souls ; and, in the 
kingdom of Christ on earth, there can be none 
higher : nor has he placed any of his priesthood 
lower. The claim of superiority by a portion of 



TO ITS PRIMITIVE EFFICACY. 53 

them over the rest, as it is an infringement of 
Christ's own statute; so it has ever operated 
against the advancement of his kingdom. 

The effect of it has ever been, by opening a 
field for ambition and giving scope for pride, to 
fill the ranks of the ministry with graceless and 
useless men ; who, for love of filthy lucre, make 
merchandise of souls. 

We rejoice to beUeve that, in all countries and 
in all times, there have been truly noble excep- 
tions in the highest grades of the Episcopal 
scale : men who for their meek piety and thek 
personal toils in the proper work of the ministry, 
were worthy of all honor. 

And we heartily accord to the ministry of the 
Episcopal and Papal churches in this country 
a greater purity and devotedness than can be 
claimed for their brethren in office elsewhere. 

Still the system is essentially antichristian;* and 
the evil it has ever wrought in other lands must 
be expected from it here. Everything evil, in 

* Did the light of the martyr's flame give Archbishop 
Cranmer a clearer view of the nature of prelacy? The fol- 
lowing v/as his language before the Queen's commissioners : 
" Christ saith that Antichrist shall be. And who shall he be ? 
Forsooth he that advanceth himself above all other creatures. 
Now, if there he none already that hath advanced himself 
after such sort besides the Pope, then, in the meantime, let 
him be Antichrist." — Fox's Acts and Monuments. 



54 TENDENCY OF PRELATICAL 

this countryj as well as everything good, is yet in 
its beginnings. The tiger we caress may seem 
a kitten because it is young : but we ought not 
to forget that, although it may be harmless now, 
it is the offspring of a beast that has covered 
Europe with blood. 

But, young as it is, we have seen reason al- 
ready, not only in the Papal and Episcopal, but 
even in the Methodist church, to believe that 
change of clime has not exorcised its nature. 

No, Americans, be assured that if you, the 
descendants of men who were " persecuted even 
unto strange cities" by that power, and at last 
sought refuge in savage wilds, — if you indulge 
this foolish fondness for " my dear good Bishop," 
though your Bishops may be very good, the day 
will come when posterity will charge you with 
having fastened a yoke on the necks of your 
children, which your fathers were unable to bear. 
And that yoke will not be the yoke of Protes- 
tant Episcopacy, but Roman, From such an 
issue nothing can save us but an utter rejection 
of all authority but that of the New Testament ; 
and all precedent but that of the apostolic 
churches. The usages of Protestant commu- 
nions, which rest on human authority alone, con- 
stitute a cord by which they are drawn towards 
Rome ; and, unless that cord is severed, just as 
sure as human nature shall be consistent with 



PAP.TIALITIES IN THIS COUNTRY. 55 

its own history, Protestantism will be swallowed 
up by Popery. As the doctrine of the authority 
of tradition in matters of religion does of right 
belong to Rome, consistency requires that they 
who submit to it should acknowledge its source. 
And it will come to be so. The very force of 
conscience impels to it. To say nothing of those 
who, when they feel a need of a religious refuge, 
will prefer a mode of safety which least demands 
their own care ; even the most conscientious 
and devout, when they come to understand that 
their distinctive usages are valid and efficacious 
only by authority of the church, will prefer to 
receive them from the source which is the most 
ancient and venerable. And this process is now 
everywhere seen going on. In this country, 
those who were born Independents are seen 
placing themselves under Episcopacy ; evangeli- 
cal Episcopacy is succumbing to High -church- 
ism ; High-churchism is assuming the form of 
Puseyism ; and Puseyism is passing into Popery. 
It was but a httle while ago that the man, who 
originated the movement which is now convuls- 
ing the Episcopal church on both sides of the 
Atlantic, could hold the followino: lanofuaore con- 
cerning the errors of Popery : " Romanism 
views the influence of grace as a something to 
bargain about, and 6wy, and traffic with ; not 
as the opemtions of a living God, not as an ap- 



56 TENDENCIES TOWARDS POPERY. 

preach to things above us, but a commerce with 
our equals."* And yet this man is now reposing 
in the bosom of Rome.t 

* Newman on Justification. 

t The following remarks of Taylor, — whose example, by 
the way, must not be quoted, we suppose, in illustration of 
the above-named tendency, inasmuch as he left the ranks of 
Independency with the benevolent view of saving the Estab- 
lishment — on the result to which Puseyism is tending, deserve 
very serious consideration by those who, in despite of all the 
light which is now shining, are holding on to all or either of 
the strands of the cord by which this deplorable retrocession 
towards the grand Apostacy is effected. " It would be a 
gross delusion to imagine that a refined and spiritualized Ni- 
cene Christianity, such a system as is now issuing from the 
cloisters of Oxford, would prove itself materially a better 
scheme than was its original, or than was the papal church ; 
or, that it would not lead on to the same spiritual debauchery 
and tyranny. The principle is one and the same, and it is 
a principle with which neither the gospel nor the well-being 
of society will ever consist. If, in fact, this newly-refined 
gnosticism should retain the highly-wrought polish imparted 
to it by its modern originators, it would be only so much 
the more dangerous ; inasmuch as it would captivate more 
minds, and be itself less open to assault. 

" But it would not retain its first refinement— no, not through 
the lifetime of the next series of its adherents : the tendencies 
of human nature are powerful as a deluge, headed up for a 
while ; and they will take their constant course. The very 
youths who, at this moment, are being lulled by the poisonous 
atmosphere of the Nicene levels, will, twenty years hence, or 
sooner, interpret the doctrine they are receiving in a new, 
and a more intelligible, and practical, and consistent sense ; 
and, in fact, while they will teach the vulgar to revere their 
deceased masters, they will themselves, and in private, scorn 



PKIMTTIVE EQUALITY OF THE MINISTRY. 57 

But not only is it necessary to the efficacy of 
Christianity, that the primitive equality of the 
ministry be retained, but that its authority be 
preserved. 

The real minister of Christ is not dependent 
on the sign-manual of a Pope, nor the fancied 
virtues of apostolical succession, for the validity 
of his ministry. Nor is he obliged, with the 
chance of fifty or a hundred to one against him, 
to wait, perhaps till death, before he can exercise 
the whole of its functions. 

It is by no means the lightest of the com- 

their memory as scrupulous devotees, and mark the recol- 
lection of their devout sincerity. That shall happen to them 
— ^the Oxford worthies of our times, which has happened 
to the saints of Rome — to be worshipped by the rabble, and 
spit upon by the priests. The plague, not otherwise stayed, 
a very few years would be enough for bringing back upon 
England, not merely the mummeries always attendant upon 
a religion of Sacraments, nor merely the filth and folly, the 
lies and woes of the ancient monkery ; bat the palpable and 
terrible cruelties of the times of St. Dominic, of Ximenes, and 
of Bonner. If there are those who will scout any such anti- 
cipation, as a mere controversial flourish, or rhetorical ex- 
travagance, or as a disingenuous endeavor, on the part of a 
writer, to enlist popular fears and vulgar prejudices on his 
side, let them read again the history of Europe, and of the 
church, from the second century downwards, and gather 
thence what has hitherto escaped them — the first principles 
of human nature, and of the social system as developed 
by religious motives." — Ancient Christianity , Hooker's ed., 
p. 370. 



58 CLAIMS OF EPISCOPACY. 

plaints which are to be made against the preten- 
sions of prelacy, that it not only deprives the 
great body of its own ministry of some of the 
most important prerogatives of the ministerial 
office, but that it also denies the authority of the 
ministry of every church which rejects its pre- 
tensions. "Master, .we saw one casting out 
devils in thy name, and he foUoweth not us^ and 
we forbade him !" 

But what said Christ ? " Forbid him not !" 
Away, then, with the* interference of your 
Popes and your Right Reverend Fathers in God ; 
and let the minister of Christ, to all intents and 
purposes whatsoever, be the Bishop of his flock. 
And away with the nauseous and insufferable 
arrogance that claims a whole State for a parish, 
and tells the ministry of every denomination but 
its own, — men who, " by pureness, by knowledge, 
by the word of truth, by the Holy Ghost, by love 
unfeigned ;" and, not a few of them, in " fastings, 
in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, or imprison- 
ments," are approving themselves the ministers 
of God, — that tells such men, "Your credentials 
are spurious, and your work unauthorized :" 
and, turning to a whole commonwealth, says to 
its hundreds of thousands, "Ye are the people 
of my pasture, and the sheep of my hand.' 
3. A third condition necessary to the efficacy 



A CHURCH AS ORGANIZED BY APOSTLES. 59 

of Christianity is, that the Church fulfil her 
office. 

What has been set forth on the page of eccle- 
siastical history in almost all lands,, and for more 
than fifteen hundred years, as a church, has 
been some vast, encroaching, and domineering 
hierarchy ; embracing every grade of moral char- 
acter, and utterly confounding the church and 
the world : so that, as an institution, instead of 
acting as the salt of the earth, it has rather ag- 
gravated its corruptions. Not such was a Church 
of Christ as organized by apostles. 

The church of Corinth, the church of Ephe- 
sus, the church of Rome, as set at work by them^ 
were congregations of believers, each having its 
own bishop or bishops, i. e. overseers, each com- 
plete in itself, and independent of every other. 
These facts, however they may be denied or 
dissembled in this country, are acknowledged 
abroad. 

Dr. Mosheim, of the Lutheran church, says 
that, ^^ although the churches were, in the first 
age of Christianity, united together hi one com- 
mon bond of faith and love ; and were, in every 
respect, ready to promote the interest and wel- 
fare of each other by a reciprocal interchange 
of good offices ; yet, with regard to government 
and internal economy^ every individual church 
considered itself as an independent community ; 



60 EPISCOPAL TESTIMONIES. 

none of them ever looking beyond the circle of 
its own members for assistance, or recognizing 
any sort of external influence or authority."* 

Dr. Barrow, of the EngUsh Episcopal church, 
who was called the best scholar of his time in 
England, says : " Every church w^as settled 
apart under its own bishops and presbyters, (dif- 
ferent names for the same office, as Mosheim 
and Neander have clearly shown) so as inde- 
pendently and separately to manage its own 
concerns. Each was governed by its own head, 
and had its own Iaws."t 

" Though there was one Lord, one faith, one 
baptism," says Archbishop Whately, ^' for all of 
these (churches,) yet they were each a distinct 
independent community on earth ; united by the 
common principles on which they were founded 
by their mutual agreement, affection, and respect ; 
but not having any one recognized head on earth, 
or acknowledging any sovereignty of one of those 
societies over others.^t 

A primitive church, then, was a congregation 
of believers, — of persons who professed repentance 
towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. 
It was not composed of believers and their rela- 
tives, or their children ; but of those who pro- 

* De Rebns, Christ. Saec. I. § 48. t V^orks, vol. i. p. 662. 
X Kingdom of Christ, p. 110, N. Y. ed. 1842. 



A CHURCH AS ORGANIZED BY APOSTLES. 61 

fessed, at least, to be Christians ; and that, not 
by proxy, but in their proper persons. 

They were united together for purposes of mu- 
tual edification, for the worship of God, and the 
extension of the rehgion of their Saviour. These 
purposes they were to accomplish by the exempli- 
fication of that religion in their lives ; by the sup- 
port of a public ministry of the word, and by per- 
petuating two monumental ordinances : the first 
of which was to attest to the \vorld a fundamen- 
tal fact ; and the second, a fundamental doctrine. 
The fundamental fact was, that Christ not only 
died, but rose again from the dead : the funda- 
mental doctrine was, salvation by his death. 
The personal bearing of the first was, that sub- 
mission to it was a pubhc announcement of their 
own death to sin, and their resvirrection to a new 
life ; while the element employed further symbol- 
ized the cleansing of the soul from the defilement 
of past sin. 

The personal bearing of the second was, that 
the Church, as a body, and each of its members 
respectively, professed their faith in the virtue 
of the death of Christ as a vicarious sacrifice for 
sin ; and their reliance, not on their own per- 
sonal merit, but on his atonement for acceptance 
with God. 

Such were the structure, composition, and ob- 
jects, of a Church ag established by apostles : 
6 



62 TRUE THEORY OF 

and such is the only form which is adapted to 
the universal extension of Christianity. But of 
churches so constituted the earth may be filled 
without their interfering with each other ; with- 
out giving scope for ambition and pride ; and 
without the existence of a dangerous ecclesias- 
tical power. 

4. The last thing we mention, but, with the 
exception of the first named, — the supremacy of 
the Scriptures, — the most indispensable of all con- 
ditions to the efficacy of Christianit}^, is, that the 
individual professor of religion possesses an ap- 
propriate character. 

The true theory of the Christian Church is, 
that none shall belong to it but real Christians : 
persons who believe the doctrines of the Gos- 
pel, who have truly repented of sin, and heartily 
forsaken it ; whose affections are set on things 
above, and whose lives are regulated by the 
Christian precepts. 

To this theory the practice in religious pro- 
fession can never, perhaps, be made fully to 
conform, on account of the deceitfulness of the 
heart, and the influence of sinister motive : but 
it must at least aim at it : and the only hopeful, 
as it is the only scriptural polity, is, that which 
acknowledges the theory and does its utmost to 
carry it out, in the admission of members. 

It is for want of this that the name of 



RELIGIOUS PROFESSION. 63 

Christian has so lost its power. Better, far 
better, for the hope of the world's salvation 
would it be if Christianity could point to but 
three hundred out of ten thousand, and say, 
" These are my jewels :" than that the world 
should point to a host of '*' baptized infidels, 
worse for mending, washed to fouler stains,'' and 
reply : Are not these also thy sons ? 

The prevalence of a merely nominal Chris- 
tianity has well nigh banished the knowledge of 
the nature of real Christianity from the world. 
The grand apostacy, setting out with the error 
that the ordinances were endowed with a kind of 
charm without which even infancy could not be 
saved, converted the church into a sort of univer- 
sal receptacle of good and evil : an ark of safety 
for the lion as well as the lamb, the vulture as 
well as the dove. 

The doctrine of infant baptism and birthright 
membership has done an amount of injury to 
the cause of vital Christianity which no human 
mind will ever be able to estimate. 

The great Destroyer, with this two-edged 
sword of mischief cutting right and left, has gone 
throuo^h the world inflicting a double damna- 
tion : betraying one half of mankind into a fatal 
apathy with the belief that their heaven was se- 
cure, because they had been christened, and 
had access to the Eucharist ; and the other, into 



64 MISCHIEFS OF BIRTHRIGHT MEMBERSHIP. 

a rejection and contempt of Christianity itself as 
a system of priestcraft.^ 

Real chrislians — thanks to God's sovereiofn 
mercy, there always have been : but, hke a few 
lost diamonds in continents of mud, neither the 
world nor the church has known them. They 

* The contrast between the usage of the primitive churches, 
in the reception of members, and that of the Catholic church 
— and it might with equal truth be added of all the estab- 
lished churches of Protestantism — has been most forcibly 
drawn by Pascal : " On ne vo^^'ait," says he, " k la naissance 
de I'Eglise, que des Chretiens parfaitement enstruits dans 
tous les points necessaires au salut ; au lieu que Ton volt 
aujourd'hui une ignorance si grossiere, qu'elle fait g6mir tous 
ceux qui ont des sentimens de tendresse pour I'Eglise. On n'en- 
trait alors dans I'Eglise qu'apres de grands travaux et de longs 
desirs : on s'y trouve, maintenant, sans aucune peine, sans 
Boin, et sans travail. On n'y etait admis qu'apres un examen 
Ires exact ; on y est re^u, maintenant, avant qu'on soit en 
etat d'etre examine. On n'y etait regu alors qu'apres avoir 
abjure sa vie passee, qu'apres avoir renonce au monde, et k 
la chair, et au diable : on y entre, maintenant, avant qu'on 
soit en etat de faire aucune de ces choses. Enfin il fall ait, au- 
trefois, sortir du monde pour etre re^u dans I'Eglise : au heu 
qu'on entre aujourd'hui dans I'Eglise au meme temps que dans 
le monde." And after speaking of infant baptism as at once 
necessary to salvation and the occasion for neglect of personal 
piety, he closes by saying, " L'Eglise ne pent voir, sans 
gemir, abuser de la plus grande de ses graces ; et que ce 
qu'elle a fait pour assurer leur salut devienne I'occasion pres- 
que assuree de leur porte ; car elle n'a pas change d'esprit, 
quoiqu'elle ait change de coutume." — Fensees de Pascal, 
tome 2nd, p. 224, et seq. Paris, 1820. 



IN ENGLAND ^IN THIS COUNTRY. 65 

have been considered by the one as heretics, and 
by the other as moon-struck disturbers of its 
quietness ; and prince and prelate have conspired 
to destroy them. 

Even in England how few can tell you 
rightly what it is to be a Christian. They will 
tell you that to be baptized, and to be able to 
repeat the catechism and to say prayers, is to be 
on the way to heaven : and if you speak of the 
spirituality of the Gospel, of being born again, 
of the inward life, of the war of the spirit against 
the flesh, and of Christ in the soul, the hope of 
glory ; you '- bring strange things to their ears." 

And how much better has it been in this 
country ? The practice of infant baptism 
among almost all denominations, has trained 
generation after generation to believe they were 
not exactly sinners ; that they were a sort of 
Christians; and that, somehow or other, they 
were nearer to heaven for what their fathers 
were. 

This error at the door of admission filled even 
the churches of New England with members 
who had the form of godliness without its 
power. 

It was but a natural consequence that the 
power that was unfelt should come at last to be 
denied ; that churches which began with the 

6* 



66 DUTY OF CHRISTIANS 

error of baptismal regeneration, however modi- 
fiedj should finish with denying the existence of 
any other ; and that the evidence of a change of 
heart should neither be required on entering the 
church, nor evinced by a holy life afterwards. 

To restore Christianity, then, to its primi- 
tive efficiency and glory, let the spirituality of 
Christ's kingdom be fully recognized. Let the 
composition, government, and action of Chris- 
tian churches show that that kingdom is not of 
this world. As to civil patronage and state in- 
terference, let lords and monarchs neither bless 
them nor curse them, but let them alone. Let 
the word of the Lord have free course. Let the 
ministry be content to stand in the lot, and do 
the work which Christ assigned them. Let 
them cease to teach for doctrines the command- 
ments of men. Let them proclaim the great 
truth that man, though born of a saint, is a child 
of wrath, and must be born again : that Christ is 
a Saviour from sin, not in it ; and that without 
hohness no man shall see the Lord. 

Let the ordinances be kept to their true ex- 
pression, as signs of grace r^eceived, and salvation 
secured; not the means of conferring it. Let 
the church demand of every applicant for ad- 
mission, evidence of decided consecration to 
Christ ; and sever from her connection all who 
dishonor the Christian name. Then, and not 



OF THE PRESENT DAY. 67 

till then, shall Christianity ^' look forth as the 
morning ; then^ shall her righteousness go forth 
as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp thai 
burneth." 

It is a practical question of immeasurable mo- 
ment, Whether evangelical Christians should con- 
nect themselves with ecclesiastical organizations 
whose radical errors have produced such dis- 
astrous results to the religious interests of the 
world ; or whether they ought to leave them to 
perish with the revolutions of time a ad of em- 
pire. But, it appears to us that, if the authority 
of Christ is to be regarded, it is a question which 
has long since been decided : — ■" If the salt have 
lost its savor, it is good for nothing but to be 
cast out and to be trodden under foot of men." 

It was probably owing precisely to the acqui- 
escence of real Christians in departures from 
fundamental principles — certainly not to an in- 
herent defectiveness in the spirit or form of Chris- 
tianity, — that churches, planted by apostles, came 
to be consolidated into colossal engines of op- 
pression and corruption. 

Had all that really knew the grace of God ad- 
hered, from the beginning, to the principles on 
which the kingdom of Christ was founded, it is 
difficult to believe but that true Christianity, in- 
stead of being compelled to " flee into the wilder* 
ness," and her witnesses to " prophesy in sack- 



68 THE ERROR OS FORMER AGES. 

cloth," would have held on her rejoicing way of 
triumph ; and long ere this have been ^' the joy 
of the whole earth." 

But alas, the sure word of prophecy w^as lost 
sight of; the warning of the rise of Antichrist 
was forgotten; the caution against the '^observ- 
ance of days, and months, and times, and 
years," was unheeded ; the care to " remember 
the apostles in all things" neglected ; and their 
exhortation to "contend earnestly for the faith 
which w^as once delivered to the saints'' was dis- 
regarded. And when, at last, the nominal 
church had become the " habitation of devils, the 
hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every 
unclean and hateful bird ;" the command, '^ Come 
ye out of her, my people, that ye be not par- 
takers of her sins," was disobeyed. 

But not all forgot or disobeyed. Dark as 
many successive ages were, there has never been 
a generation without its thousands who refused 
" to worship the beast, or to receive his mark in 
their foreheads ;" who sought, at every hazard, to 
rear the fallen pillar of truth ; and to rekindle 
the light of a primitive Christianity. 

Such, we believe, were many of those who 
were destroyed as heretics. Such were the 
Paulicians, such the Waldenses, such the Albi- 
genses ; and such, too, we must believe, were 

my of those who were vilified with the name 



EARLY WITNESSES BAPTISM. 69 

of Anabaptist, and exterminated in Germany. 
And such; we know, have been the Baptist 
churches in Great Britain and America. What- 
ever may have been, and in many instances, 
may still be, their defects, in the pressure of a 
doctrine or an ordinance into a disproportionate 
prominence ; or in the adoption of a poUcy not 
strictly in harmony with their own principles ;* 

* A large portion of the Baptist churches both in England 
and America, in the last generation, we have no doubt carried 
their hostility to the doctrines of Arminius and Wesley so far 
that they were justly chargeable with antinomianism. The 
attachment of their preachers to " the doctrines of grace" was 
BO strong that, with the exception of baptism, they seldom 
dwelt on anything else. Yet they were laborious and self- 
denying men, mighty in the Scriptures, and greatly blessed in 
the conversion of souls. 

It may be worthy of consideration whether the present 
generation are not in danger of running into the opposite ex- 
treme : whether they are not in danger of losing sight of the 
great truth so dear to their fathers, that " God hath saved us 
with an holy calling, not according to our works, but accord- 
ing to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in 
Christ Jesus before the world began." Fixing a too exclusive 
attention on another great truth, that salvation is by 7Jieans, 
not a few have been betrayed into the adoption of measures 
which have appealed to the passions of the ignorant, disgusted 
the intelligent, and brought experimental religion into dis- 
credit ; spreading doubt' in the public mind, not only of the 
reahty of a divine influence in revivals of religion, but of the 
divine reality of any religion whatever. 

It is devoutly to be hoped that the lessons which the errors 
of the past have furnished may be turned to future benefit : 



70 BAPTIST PRINCIPLES. 

they have ever maintained the sole authority and 
sufficient hght of the Scriptures in matters of re- 
ligion and morals. They have ever been the 
earnest advocates of a strictly scriptural Chris- 
tianity ; of a purely spiritual Church ; of intel- 
lectual freedom; of the right of private judg- 
ment ; and of personal and untransferrable ac- 
countability. They have thus ever asserted the 
rights of conscience, and rehgious liberty. They 

that the ministry will confine themselves to the preaching of 
Christ crucified, and will so commend themselves to every 
man's conscience in the use of that instrumentality as to win 
souls as well as conquer them ; and that the churches will be 
careful so to labor, and so to live^ as to aid the efforts of the 
ministry, and sustain the authority and honor of the pastoral 
office. 

It is a bitter reflection, which the author is unable to ban- 
ish, when contemplating these oscillations of churches " built 
on the foundation of the apostles and prophets," that if all 
the intelligent and sober-minded who have known experiment- 
ally what " the truth as it is in Jesus" is, had been willing to 
profess and practise it — willing to " go forth unto him without 
the camp bearing his reproach," and identify themselves with 
churches resting on a simply scriptural basis ; those of the 
Baptist denomination might have been saved from the evils 
which they have suffered, and their principles been every- 
where established: and that the world might not now be wit- 
nessing the universal languor of vital godliness, while super- 
stition is making havoc with the sanguine, and infidelity with 
the speculative. Oh, when will christians in their religion be 
willing to be the disciples of him "who pleased not himself;" 
and to do as duty and conviction, not as ease and inclination 
call I 



EVILS OP UNFAITHFULNESS. 71 

have ever maintained that rehgion, to be accept- 
able to Godj must be the self-consciousj intelligent, 
voluntary, homage of the soul of the worshipper ; 
without which, rites and forms are utterly un- 
avaiUng, and, as a ground of trust, infinitely 
mischievous. 

It may be too much to demand that the Chris- 
tians of early time should have had both the 
forecast and the firmness to resist effectually the 
beginnings of those evils which have had such 
baleful issue : but, certainly, it cannot be too 
much to expect that those on whom the ends of 
the world are come should learn wisdom from the 
past. 

Yet if we may judge from the present tenden- 
cies of things, both in this country and in Eng- 
land, the same course of folly and sin is to be 
run over again : and we may well fear that the 
moral darkness which had partially disappeared, 
will again cover the nations. 

Certain it is that, if even those who profess to 
be the subjects of renewing grace will disregard 
the light which beams from the page of history, 
and shut their eyes to the plainest commands of 
Christ ; if they will refuse to place themselves, 
as to church order and ordinances, on the ground 
of individual responsibility, and of the rights of 
conscience, and direct amenability to God ; on 
the scriptural ground of the spirituality of Christ's 



72 DUTY OF BAPTIST CHURCHES. 

kingdom, and the equality of his ministry, and 
the independence of his churches — both of the 
control of the state and of each other ; and if 
they will throw thetnselves into religious con- 
nexions ivhere their influence will go to uphold 
those very forms ^ errors, and usages^ by which 
the loorld has so dreadfully suffered, and the 
Christian name been so deeply dishonored ; — if, 
we say, converted men, after they have known 
the way of righteousness, will do all this, man- 
kind have little good indeed to expect from Chris- 
tianity : the day is hastening when popery and 
infidehty will divide the world between them. 

What, in view of these things, is the duty of 
the churches and the ministry of the Baptist de- 
nomination ? 

It has been remarked, and with much signifi- 
cancy, that Baptists are not Protestants : not be- 
cause they have fellowship with the errors of the 
Church of Rome against which the different na- 
tional religious establishments of Europe protest- 
ed ; but because they claim to be the representa- 
tives of the primitive churches ; and never to 
have been in any other relation to the great apos- 
tacy, since its rise, than that of ' martyrs.' 

The churches themselves, indeed, which are 
now knwon by the name of Baptist, were or- 
ganized, perhaps the oldest of them in Europe, 
since the Reformation ; although the Welsh 



AGE OF BAPTIST CHURCHES. 73 

churches claim an unbroken continuity from the 
days of the apostles.^ 

* The Welsh historians say tiiat, from the introduction of 
Christianity into Britain by the Apostle Paul in the year 63, 
till the visit of Austin, the monk by whom their conquerors 
the Saxons were " converted," about the year 600, the Welsh 
knew no other baptism than immersion ; and no other subject 
of it than the professing believer: and, regarding the kingdom 
of Christ as not of this world, they had not connected the 
church with the state. Austin having succeeded in convert- 
ing the Saxons from paganism and subjecting them to the 
dominion of the Roman See, turned his attention to the Welsh. 

The monk met them in an association on the borders of 
Herefordshire, where he made them three propositions, one 
of which was that they should receive infant baptism. But it 
was promptly met by the reply, that '• they would keep this 
ordinance, as well as all other things, as they had received 
them from the apostolic age." This prompt and decisive 
refusal so enraged him that he exclaimed, ' Sins ye wol not 
receive peace of your brethren, ye of other shall have warre 
and wretche.' And setting the Saxons upon them, they mur- 
dered one thousand and two hundred of the ministers and 
delegates then present. The leading men being dead, the 
Welsh king Cadwalader and a majority of the people submit- 
ted to Popery. But not all: Evans traces the remnant of the 
ancient faith and practice through the darkness of Popery to the 
year 1000 ; and Peter Williams down to the year 1115. From 
that time till the period of the Reformation but little is known 
^f the existence of Baptist churches in Wales, except that, on 
the visit of the earhest of the English Baptist reformers, they 
found Baptist churches, particularly in the vales of Carleon 
and Olchon, which are situated in almost inaccessible fast- 
nesses of mountains, which had existed from time immemorial. 
So it is probable that some of those churches really have, as 

7 



74 PRINCIPLES ORDINANCES AND POLITY, PRIMITIVE. 

The principles, howeverj and the oj^dinances, 
and the polity by which they are known, are 
those of the primitive churches ; even Luther, 
and Melancthon, and Calvin, and Mosheim, and 
Neander, and Archbishop Whatley being our 
judges. 

They are the only churches, therefore, in this 
country, which stand strictly on apostolic ground, 
unencumbered with the errors of the apostacy. 

Their system of church building and adminis- 
tration, as it is in conformity with that of the 
primitive churches ; so it is in harmony at once 
with the genius of Christianity, with the genius 
of the institutions of the country, most favorable 
to the cultivation of the social virtues, and the 
most perfect developement of the powers of our 
deathless nature. No other ecclesiastical organ- 
ization is adapted to the universal extension of 
Christianity. No other than its voluntary mode 
of supporting religion is adapted to commend it 
to the unprejudiced attention of mankind ; no 
other than its republican simplicity and equal- 
ity is adapted to commend the gospel to the 
poor ; no other than its unyielding adherence to 
the Bible is adapted to preserve its faith from cor- 
ruption, and at the same time cherish freedom 

they profess, maintained an unbroken continuity. — See 
Thomas's History of the Baptists in Wales, Part First. Pref' 
ace to Crosby y vol. ii. 



THEIR DANGERS. 75 

of enquiry ; no other than its requirement of evi- 
dence of decided piety for admission to member- 
ship is adapted to preserve the purity of churches ; 
and nothing less than all its scrupulous demand 
of evidence of grace in those who enter the min- 
istry is adapted to secure the self-sacrificing de- 
votion to the work of saving souls which the ig- 
norance, and vice, and hostility with which the 
ministry has to contend, requires. 

But let us guard against the mistake of sup- 
posing that because, in our form of church or- 
ganization, and our faith, and our administration 
of the word and the ordinances, we stand, above 
all other denominations, on apostolic ground ; 
we must therefore be free from error, and a salt 
which cannot lose its savor. 

The independence of our churches, and the 
popular form of our government, though the 
best adapted for the prosperity of Christianity 
when Christians are such Christians as all 
Christians ought to be, may be the occasion of 
much injury where a worldly policy controls the 
administration instead of the laws of Christ. 

It has often been objected to our churches, 
that such policy does, in fact, in too many in- 
stances, prevail ; and never without inflicting 
serious injury on the interests of religion. 

Another evil to which w^e are hable, is that of 
restricting the just and scriptural power of the 



76 EVILS OF A TIME-SERVING PROFESSION. 

ministry. As we have stated in a former page, 
the pastor of a church is, to all intents and pur- 
poses, its bishop : but, while in oth^r forms of 
church organization he has been exalted above, 
our error has generally been to depress him below 
his proper sphere. 

Errors of this kind, however, in a great many 
instances at least, in which we have known 
them to exist, would have been overruled and 
corrected if all whose convictions were with us 
had been guided by their convictions instead of 
their preferences in their profession of religion. 
And it is precisely this defection that gives us 
our most anxious fears for the prevalence of vital 
Christianity in this land. 

If all who profess to have been renewed by 
grace would take the ecclesiastical position which 
corresponds to their convictions on the constitu- 
tion and ordinances of the primitive Christian 
churches ; not only would thousands forsake 
Episcopal for independent ground, but tens of 
thousands would be found adding their numbers 
and their influence to the Baptist denomination : 
and hundreds, and probably thousands, of 
churches which are now too small to support a 
public ministry, and too ignorant and poor, 
whatever their piety may be, to make much im- 
pression on the world around them, might take 
positions as cities set on hills. 



PAST HISTORY OF THE DENOMINATION. 77 

The position of the churches of this denomi- 
nation is one of awful responsibility and surpass- 
ing glory. Would to Heaven that they better 
understood their position and their mission ! God 
has raised them up to be living witnesses for his 
truth, and to furnish a standing protest against 
the perversions and corruptions of the religion of 
Christ. Through them He has already given in- 
estimable blessings to the Church cathohc, and to 
the world. Through them he has given to this 
country the blessing of rehgious liberty ;* he has 

* The proposition that all religious service should be a conscious, 
willing homage of the soul, has ever been among the cardinal 
points of Baptist faith. They have, consequently, always de- 
nied the virtue of parental proxy, and the right of civil com- 
pulsion in acts of religious worship. The great struggle, there- 
fore, for religious liberty, which has had so glorious an issue 
in this country, and which is now agitating the nations of the 
old world, is coeval with the existence of the denomination. 
We have seen (note p. 73) how the invasion of this principle was 
resisted by the churches in Wales, more than twelve hundred 
years since ; and the suflerings to which they w^ere subjected 
for asserting it. The starting point of the struggle in this 
country, lies so far back as 1632 ; when Roger Williams 
avowed Baptist principles in Salem, and was banished for 
them by the court, which, several years afterwards, settled 
the policy of Massachusetts, as no doubt, it was fondly hoped, 
for ever, by an act passed Nov. 1G44, of which the following 
is an extract : — " It is ordered and agreed that if any person or 
persons within this jurisdiction, shall either openly condemn 
or oppose the baptizing of infants, or go about secretly to se- 
duce others from the approbation or use thereof, or shall pur- 

7* 



78 PAST HISTORY 

made them chiefly instrumental in waking and 
sustaining the life of evangehcal Christianity ia 

posely depart the congregation at the administration of the or- 
dinance, .... and shall appear to the court wilfully and ob- 
stinately to continue therein, after due time and means of 
conviction every such person or persons shall be sentenced to 
banishment." 

Williams, becoming himself the founder of a colony, after 
his banishment, had the opportunity of carrying out his prin- 
ciples : and the little " Province of Rhode Island and Provi- 
dence Plantations" became the cradle of religious liberty. 
" Freedom to worship God," — ^freedom not merely for them- 
selves, but freedom for all men, — was their motto from the 
beginning. " When the number of inhabitants of Providence 
did not exceed forty persons," says Callender, quoted in 
Knowles' Memoir of Williams, p. 181, "they combined in a 
form of civil government according to a model drawn up by 
themselves, in which they say. We agree, as formerly hath 
been the liberties of the town, so still, to hold forth liberty of 
conscience." A government was soon after regularly organ- 
ized on the island also, in which it was enacted " by the au- 
thority of this present court, that none be accounted a delin- 
quent for doctrine, provided it be not directly repugnant to the 
government or laws established." The next year it was fur- 
ther " ordered that that law of the last court, made concern- 
ing liberty of conscience in point of doctrine, be perpetuated." 
And, in the code of laws adopted in the first general assembly 
of the Plantations under their charter, after such specifica- 
tions as were necessary for the preservation of peace and or- 
der, it was decreed that " otherwise than thus, what is here 
forbidden, all men may walk as their consciences persuade 
ihemf every one in the name of his God. And let the lambs 
of the Most High walk, in this colony, without molesta- 
tion, in the name of Jehovah their God, for ever and ever^ 
Contemporaneously with these movements of Williams and 



OF THE DENOMINATION. 79 

this country, at a time when it was fast waning 
to extinction f he has honored them with set- 
ting in motion the missionary enterprise in which 
Christians of both continents are now enUst- 
ed ;t to them are the nations of the earth in- 

his coadjutors, Lord Baltimore, having obtained a proprietary 
title to the territory of Maryland, " offered fifty acres in feo 
to every emigrant, and gave equal privileges to all classes of 
christians " who would settle on his lands. — {Morse, vol. i. 
p. 450.) But religious liberty forms no part of papal polity. 
It has been from the labors and sufferings of Baptists, of 
whose faith and polity it is a fundamental principle, that tho 
tree has grown, which first found a soil in Rhode Island in 
which to strike its root ; and whose extending shade is now 
promising refreshment to the nations. 

* The acknowledgment has often been made, by our 
Pedobaptist brethren, that when Socinianism was spreading 
an almost universal blight over the churches in Eastern 
Massachusetts, the Baptist churches stood firm as pillars of 
the truth. And while, in Boston, there was scarcely an or- 
thodox pulpit left, and it was found impossible, for years, to 
sustain a prayer-meeting in any of the Congregational 
churches ; the Baptist churches, under the labors of Still- 
man and Baldwin, were blessed with the outpouring of the 
Spirit, and were the rallying point of evangelical faith and 
piety. " A few spiritual members of the Old South church," 
says a writer, " repaired to the Baptist lectures and prayer- 
meetings during the revival, and gained strength to establish 
one of their own. Hence came the settlement of Mr. Hunt- 
ington, the erection of the Park Street house of worship, the 
call of Dr. Griffin, &c., &c., means which God blessed to the 
general revival and extension of experimental religion in that 
denomination." 

t The missionary undertakings of the Moravians seem to 



80 . PAST HISTORY 

debted for the origin of that sisterhood of societies 
which are now employed in giving the Bible to 
every tongue and people ;* and to them are Chris- 
have had no effect in awaking a missionary spirit in the 
rest of the Protestant world : and it was not till Fuller and 
Carey, with their coadjutors, had been laboring amid opposi- 
tion and contempt from both people and government, for years, 
to rouse the Christians of Britain to the duty of giving the 
gospel to the heathen, that other denominations came to the 
work. " In the year 1784, at a Baptist association held at 
Nottingham, it was determined that one hour, in the first 
Monday evening of every month, should be devoted to solemn 
and special intercession for the revival of genuine religion and 
the extension of the Redeemer's kingdom throughout the 
earth ; and, about three years afterwards, the providence of 
God brought forward an individual to assist in this holy cause, 
who was destined, in after times, to render the most important 
and invaluable services, both to the Christian and the Pagan 
world." This was the Rev. William Carey. Eleven years 
after this, the London Missionary Society was formed, pursu- 
ant to a call on the ministry " of different denominations 
practising infant baptism," by a circular in which it is said, 
" Though our plan is distinct from the undertakings of the 
Moravian Brethren, and the churches who hold the necessity 
of adult immersion, we are far from opposing or disapproving 
their laudable endeavors ; on the contrary, we applaud their 
zeal, and rejoice in their success, accounting it our duty to 
imitate their truly primitive example." — See Smith and 
Choules' History of Missions, vol. i., pp. 183 — 327, et seq. 

* At a meeting of a circle of friends, in London, on the 
7th of December, 1802, in which the means of meeting the 
want of Bibles in Wales was a topic of conversation, "it 
was suggested that as Wales was not the only part of the 
kingdom in which such a want as had been described might 



OF THE DENOMINATION. 81 

tians of every name indebted for that vast sym- 
phony of prayer which monthly girds the globe 



be supposed to prevail, it would be desirable to take such steps 
as might be likely to stir up the public mind to a general dis- 
persion of the Scriptures. To this suggestion, which proceeded 
from the Rev. Joseph Hughes, a Baptist Minister, one of the 
Societies' present (1816) Secretaries, and which was warmly 
encouraged by the rest of the company, we are to trace the 
dawn of those measures, which, expanding with time, and pro- 
gressive discussion, issued at length in the proposal and estab- 
lishment of the British and Foreign Bible Society." — Oicen^s 
History of British and Foreign Bible Society, p. 9, N. Y 
edition. 

Mr. Hughes was desired to prepare such an Address to the 
Public as should contain the substance of his observations at 
that meeting: which he did in the course of the winter ; and 
submitted it, in the month of May, under the title of •' The 
excellence of the Holy Scriptures an Argument for their more 
General Dispersion." " In this Essay," says Owen, " which 
may be regarded as containing the rudiments of the future 
Society, the author expatiates on the transcendent excellence 
of the Holy Scriptures, enumerates the different Religious 
Societies more or less concerned in promoting their circula- 
tion, and describes the limitations of their respective constitu- 
tions, and their consequent inadequacy to the work of a gen- 
eral distribution. Mr. Hughes then represents the importance 
of an association of christians at large, with a view exclu- 
sively to the circulation of the Holy Scriptures ; and points 
out a variety of advantages, both direct and collateral, which 
might be expected to result from the operations of such an 
Institution." — Hist., p. 10. The comprehensiveness, and al- 
most prophetic forecast of Mr. Hughes' mind, will be seen 
by a few sentences from his Circular : — " Let us then cast a 
friendly eye over distant countries, and be the parents of the 



82 PAST insTorx^Y of the denomination. 

with petitions for the emission of Jehovah's light 
and truth, and Messiah's universal empire. 

first Institution that ever emanated from one of the nations 
of Europe, for the express purpose of doing good to all the 
rest." " The proposed Society would bespeak much attention 
which was never yet brought to bear on a subject so truly 
grand and momentous. Religion would occupy a larger 
space in the public mind, and the advocates of religion enjoy 
a new opportunity of testifying the strength of their convic- 
tions and the fervor of their zeal. A new impulse would be 
given to kindred institutions ; and measures, hitherto un- 
thought of, would be added to those which have long dis- 
played their beneficial effects." .... *'We have specified 
Europe ; at the same time we would allow ample scope. 
Correspondence might more or less include every quarter of 
the globe." 

' " It is impossible to reflect on these observations," says 
Owen, " written nearly a year before the Society was formed, 
without being forcibly struck by the remarkable exact- 
ness with which they have been verified," p. 16. " It was 
not till the month of January, 1804, that the measures had 
attained a sufficient degree of ripeness, in the estimation of 
the conductors, to justify the consideration of steps for carry- 
ing them into actual execution. The plan thus sketched out 
was now regularly completed ; and the title was altered, at 
the suggestion of the same individual from whom the first 
idea of the Institution proceeded, from * A Society for pro- 
moting a more extensive circulation of the Holy Scriptures 
both at home and abroad,' the form in which it originally 
stood ; to the definite and comprehensive designation of * The 
British and Foreign Bible Society,'" p. 17. 

And now, the denomination which gave it birth, and aided 
its growth till it became the mightiest moral instrumentality 
on earth, is excluded from participation of its funds ; although 
its missionaries have translated the Bible into the languages 



PRESENT DUTY. 83 

To this prayer let that people with whom it 
began add their most devout amen^ and, in the 
faithful discharge of every Christian duty, seek 
to hasten the day when Christ, as King in Zion, 
shall be more implicitly and fully obeyed ; and 
the crown of all nations shall flourish on his 
head. 

Let them remove everything from among them 
which is a just cause of offence to an enlightened 
piety and a pure taste. Let them preserve their 
churches as golden candlesticks supporting only 
the pure flame which rises from the oil of the 
sanctuary. 

Let them do all in their power to correct mis- 
apprehension of their position and peculiarities f 

of more than half the heathen world : — and the American 
Society has followed its example I Before this unrighteous 
proceeding, the British and American Societies were the fa- 
vorite institutions of the denomination, as affording a com- 
mon ground on which they might stand with '•' all who pro- 
fess and call themselves christians," and labor for their 
common Lord. 

As an Address, which the author made on behalf of the 
American Bible Society, will show not his own feeling only, 
but the general feeling of the denomination towards those 
Societies, before the obnoxious measures ; and another Ad- 
dress, delivered at the first Anniversary of The American and 
Foreign Bible Society, states the action complained of, and 
explains the ground of complaint ; he will give them to his 
readers as an appendix to this essay. 

* Many Christians of other religious connexions suppose 



84 PRESENT DUTY. 

and to quicken the religious conscience of all 
who profess a Christian discipleship. And, re 

that the Baptist churches regard baptism as essential to sal- 
vation, and are surprised when told that they impute this 
sentiment to the only denomination who never held it ; and 
exclaim, How is it that we have been under so strange a 
misapprehension! Sure enough, how is it? 

Equally great is the misapprehension of our views and 
practice with regard to the Lord's Supper. It is supposed we 
do not invite members of other than Baptist churches to unite 
with us in that ordinance because we have not fellowship with 
them as christians. 

And so wide-spread, and deeply inured is this misapprehension 
in the community, that even intelligent Christians sometimes 
meet the most authoritative corrections of it with incredulity. 
Indeed, the spread of Baptist views has not kept pace with 
Baptist professions : for we have reason to believe there are 
thousands who have entered Baptist churches from other de- • 
nominations, who have been compelled by their convictions 
regarding the subject and mode of baptism, who nevertheless 
do but little understand their position and peculiarities ; and 
who have no small disquietude because they not only know 
the existence of the impressions prevalent among christians 
of other denominations, but suppose those impressions to be 
correct. So far are they, in truth, however, from being cor- 
rect, that it is one of the distinctive aims of the denomination 
to disabuse the Lord's Supper from the perversion w^hich 
makes it a test of fellowship ; and to restore it to its true posi- 
tion of a commemorative act, expressive of the faith of the 
church in the death of Christ as an expiatory offering for sin: 
as it is another distinctive aim of the denomination to vindi- 
cate the ordinance of baptism from the perversion which 
makes it a means of transition from death unto life, instead 
of being a public profession of it. 



PRESENT DUTY. 85 

memberiiig that the truth, when spoken in love, 
and accompanied with the demonstration of the 
Spirit, is mighty to the pulhng down of strong 
holds, let them take care that all the weapons of 
their w^arfare be spiritual. And, above all things 
else, let them see that their individual religious 
character is such as to be a light to the world, 
and salt to the earth ; awaking, in those with 
whom they mingle, the conviction that they 
have been with Jesus, and learned of the " meek 
and lowly in heart." 



APPENDIX. 



ADDRESS 

(Referred to on page 83.) 

Delivered at the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the American 
Bible Society^ on offering the following resolution: 

Resolved, That the co-operation of diferent de- 
nominations of Christians^ in the distribution of the 
Bible J loithout note or comment^ has a happy tendency 
to allay party feeling^ and to strengthen the cause of 
evangelical religion, 

I hope I may be indulged, Mr. President, if, in 
attempting to support this resohition, I use the lan- 
guage of feeling, rather than of argument : for it is 
difficult for a man to reason straightly, when his 
heart is full ; and it is difficult for one who " prays 
for the peace of Jerusalem," to witness or to contem- 
plate the scenes of this day without an overflowing 
heart. 

Happily, however, the resolution needs not, now, 
to be sustained by argument: its truth has been de- 
monstrated by experiment. If it had not been, pru- 
dence might have required that, in supporting it, I 



APPENDIX. 87 

should preclude the suspicion of heresy, by prefacing 
my observations with the recital of ray creed. For 
the time has been, when a man of any denomination, 
who should have advocated a religious co-operation 
on any other principle than absolute conformity to 
his own standard^ would have been considered as 
having shipwrecked either his faith or his senses. 
And that such should be the state of things now, 
that the divers denominations of Christians should 
meet in harmony, and mingle their prayers, and 
their counsels, and their labors to extend the know- 
ledge of God, cannot but be the occasion of intense 
feeling in every Christian breast ; a feeling of aston- 
ishment to him who contemplates the past, and of 
holy exultation to him who looks to the future. 

Who can compare the scenes which transpired in 
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the 
advocates of different tenets and rites met only for 
strife and debate ; when, in the language of an early 
historian, "the substantial were lost in contending 
for externals ;" when the Catholic drew the sword 
against the Protestant, and the Protestant lighted the 
faggot for the Dissenter, and the Dissenters, though 
groaning under the heavy hand of persecution from 
those in power, were anathematizing and proscrib- 
ing each other ; and when it seemed to be the only 
point in which they all agreed, that heterodoxy 
should be suppressed by the cogency of fire and 
steel — who, we say, can compare that state of things 
in the Christian community, with that which now 



88 APPENDDL 

permits a convocation of those various denominations 
in peaceful and affectionate co-operation, without be- 
ing affected, deeply and joyfully affected with the 
later triumphs of the Gospel over human passion 
and prejudice, and feeling that the scene we now 
witness, is both a prognostic and an earnest of the 
latter-day glory ? 

I have said, that to him who contemplates the past, 
it is a matter of astonishment that the different deno- 
minations should now exhibit the spectacle of har- 
monious co-operation^ but I am happy to mdulge 
the belief, that I shall better express the feelings of 
those who hear me, if I take the converse of that 
position and say, that to him who has caught the 
spirit that hallows this convocation, it is matter of 
astonishment, and I will add, of hearty grief, that it 
should ever have been otherwise. 

I add, of grief. Sir, because the bitterness which 
has been manifested toward each other by those who 
professed to have been reconciled to God by the same 
atonement, has stripped Christianity both of her love- 
liness and her strength ; and held her forth in the 
aspect of deformity, to the world's contempt ! 

I add, of grief, Sir, because Christian animosity, 
a monster in the moral creation, so long as it shall 
be permitted to exist, will stand at the gate of Para- 
dise, though God may have given it into Mercy's 
charge, and most wofully guard the tree of life from 
the access of perishing sinners ; and because I feel 
the conviction, that more of the infidelity of Chris- 



APPENDIX. 89 

tendom will have to be charged to the falsification 
of Christianity by Christians themselves, than to any 
other, and all other causes put together. 

While, however, I lament over the spoils which 
infidelity has won from Christianity in the rebellions 
of her subjects, far be it from me to justify her rapa- 
city, or pronounce her gain legitimate. The subject 
of the divisions and animosities of Christians is sel- 
dom rightly considered by those who wish Christi- 
anity untrue. 

That those things which are the subject of revela- 
tion should be remote from the natural paths of the 
human mind, is pre-supposed in the fact of a revela- 
tion ; and that different minds should view them dif- 
ferently, certainly ought not to be a stone of stum- 
bling and rock of offence, while difference of opinion 
prevails on every other subject, and the plainest sub- 
jects with which the attention of mankind has been 
occupied. 

And considering, as every Christian does and 
ought to do, all the doctrines and precepts of the 
Bible as having an important bearing on the salva- 
tion of man and the glory of God, it is not in his 
nature to witness, without intense solicitude, the re- 
ception the world gives them: and if any thing is 
calculated to raise that solicitude into phrenzy, it is 
to see those doctrines and rites which he believes to 
have been stamped with the sanction of Christ, re- 
jected or perverted by those who profess his name. 
And that Christians should adhere with unyielding 



90 APPENDIX. 

tenacity to what they believe to be right, till con- 
victed of error ; and should be vv^iiling to die in its 
defence, however wonderful it may be, ought not to 
be their reproach. 

But it is not wonderful that what a man is willing 
to die for, he is ready to fight for ; and it must be 
confessed, that the history of Christianity furnishes 
ample testimony of the readiness of her votaries for 
both. If then they have erred in estimating the rel- 
ative importance of forms and faith, of faith and 
charity, and, in the intensity of their excitement, 
have seized the Avrong weapon, the martyr's blood 
shall be permitted to efface the warrior's stain. That 
Christians have differed in their views of truth and 
duty, has been the necessary consequence of the na- 
tive darkness of the human mind, and the spiritual 
nature of the contents of the Bible. That their dif- 
ferences have been productive of strife and debate, 
has been the necessary consequence of their supreme 
interest in religious concerns ; and that their animos- 
ities have been perpetuated from generation to gene- 
ration, has been the natural consequence of their ig- 
norance of each other. 

While, however, the animosities which have ex- 
isted amongst us, can be accounted for on principles 
which rescue the sacred cause we all love from just 
reproach, let us rejoice in the indications which this 
day furnishes, of the coming of the period when 
those animosities shall disappear, and when the ser- 
vants of Christ, instead of being pained with the re- 



APPENDIX. 91 

proach of their discords, shall hear once more the 
long-slumbering eulogium, " How these Christians 
love one another f" 

And come that period will, though we may not 
live to rejoice in it, when their dissensions shall be 
lost in the unity of their faith, and the union of their 
hearts, for it is the language of prophesy yet unful- 
filled. It is the language of Him whose heavens 
shall sooner pass away than his word, that the earth 
shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the 
waters cover the sea ; and as a consequence, that 
Ephraim shall no longer envy Judah, and Judah 
shall no more vex Ephraim. 

To the accomplishment of that state of things, no 
instrumentality is so entirel}'' propitious as the union 
of the different denominations of Christians in the 
circulation of the pure and unsophisticated word of 
truth. The Bible cause brings us together under 
circumstances calculated to elicit the universally ac- 
knowledged characteristics of the Christian, and no- 
thing else. It calls us together as on the mount of 
God, where we are elevated above the vale which 
IS divided by sectarian walls ; and we feel that the 
place is too holy, and too near to heaven, for dis- 
agreement. It is the rendezvous of the Lord of our 
Hosts ; where the banner, the stainless banner of the 
Prince of Peace waves a truce to every hostile feel- 
ing, and where the dearest object on earth to us all, 
the lamp of his word, is the point of attraction. 

And, while from this height we look far down on 



92 APPENDIX. 

the abodes of darkness and guilt ; and breathe forth 
the sigh of compassion for those who know not God, 
we find that we are all of one heart: and, as the sigh 
breaks forth into enquiry, How shall the darkness be 
dispelled ? and is answered, " with the Bible !" by- 
one ; ^^ with the Bible !" by another ; and by all of 
every denomination, "with the Bible!" we learn 
that in one thing we are all of one mind ; and by 
uniting in the divine employ of scattering the light 
of knowledge abroad, we enkindle the fire of love 
amongst ourselves. 

In this view of the subject, Sir, I cannot but con- 
sider the Bible cause, uniting, as it does, the hearts 
and hands of good men of every name, as the bow 
of promise to the storm-stricken world! And al- 
though it may tell that the sun shines not yet in a 
cloudless sky, and that its pure rays, in their descent, 
have suffered refraction and separation by the dark 
clouds on which they have fallen ; yet it presents 
them, even there, ranged side by side, and sweetly 
mingling; announcing that the terrors of the storm 
are already subdued, and awakening the sure ex- 
pectation of a brighter to-morrow, when those rays 
shall be blended again into one. 



APPENDIX. 93 



SPEECH 

(Referred to on page 83.) 

Before the American and Foreign Bible Society^ on the 
question of a separate Bible organization in the Baptist 
denomination ; delivered in Philadelphia, April 22d, 1839. 

Resolved, As the sense of this meeting, that the 
formation of the American and Foreign Bible Soci- 
ety, and its efforts to give to the nations of the earth 
the Bible translated, deserve the approval, and may 
justly ask the co-operation, of the Christian world. 

I am aware, Mr. President, of the engrossing scope 
of this resolution. I am aware, that it looks not only 
to the vindication of this Society, from the imputation 
of being indebted for its birth and character to a pa- 
rentage of sectarianism, which, from many Chris- 
tians of other denominations who have not had the 
means of correct information, it has had to bear ; but 
that it contemplates their support. With this design 
it was drawn up : and I ask leave to sustain it, with 
the hope that my Christian brethren present, of every 
name, will be prepared, before I sit down, not only 
to justify its formation, but to give it, henceforth, 
their sympathies, their prayers, and their help. 

As the resolution looks rather towards the public 
than the Society. I ask permission so far to depart 
from the usage of anniversaries, as to look that way 



94 APPENDIX. 

too ; and, to direct my observations rather to the as- 
sembly, for whose ear, indeed, every address is really 
intended, than to the chair which presides over the 
interests for which I plead. 

In this world, full of fallen men and fallen angels 
too, it ought not to be surprising that good is evil 
spoken of; that facts should be misstated, and mo- 
tives misunderstood. The American and Foreign 
Bible Society had not its origin in a schismatic spi- 
rit, as has been widely misrepresented and believed ; 
not in a wish for innovation ; not in a disinclination 
of the denomination among whom it originated to 
co-operate with their brethren of other denomina- 
tions ; but in circumstances which they could nei- 
ther avert nor control. The Baptists have ever dep- 
recated the necessity of their ecclesiastical severance 
from the rest of the Christian brotherhood ; and have 
ever earnestly prayed, and labored, that that neces- 
sity might be done away. And w^hen, in the insti- 
tution of the Bible enterprise, one spot was found 
upon which all could meet and work together, they 
hailed it as the " Isle of the Blest." 

Indeed, the Bible enterprise, whose grand aim has 
been to combine the energies of Christendom, owes 
its origin, as does the modern missionary enterprise, 
and the monthly concert of prayer, to the Baptist 
denomination ; and from the formation of the Amer- 
ican Bible Society, to the fatal hour when it extin- 
guished the last ray of our hope, by sanctioning the 
doings of a majority of its Board, of the memorable 



APPENDIX. 95 

seventeenth of February, 1836, it had the warm 
heart and the open hand of every Baptist of influ- 
ence, I believe, in the land. 

None, certainly, labored more assiduously or with 
greater pleasure for the promotion of its interests, than 
did those who have been principally instrumental in 
the formation of this Society : and the churches of 
the denomination at large had shown their interest 
in its operations, by the contribution of more than 
forty-five thousand dollars to its funds, in legacies 
alone ; probably, a much larger sum in the way of 
auxiliaries, collections, and memberships. 

So unwilling were they to be separated from the 
Society, that they left no means unemployed, which 
ingenuity and love could suggest, or forbearance and 
perseverance could execute, to avert the obnoxious 
decision, which threw us upon the alternative, either 
to violate our convictions of duty to God, and to the 
millions of perishing heathen, whose welfare was 
implicated in the decision : or, to withdraw, and pro- 
vide as we could, to meet their wants in some other 
way. 

As the resolution bespeaks a justification of the 
formation of the Society, it is incumbent on me to 
state the circumstances which led to it. The Rev. 
Messrs. Yates and Pearce, English Baptist mission- 
aries in India, having revised and improved the Ben- 
gali translation of the New Testament, which had 
been made by Dr. Carey, applied to the American 
Bible Society, for aid to publish an edition of it for 



95 APPENDIX. 

distribution among the natives of Bengal.* This 
aid the American Bible Society refused to grant,— 
Why ? — for, by the reason of the refusal, the refusal 
itself must be justified or condemned, and the course 
which the Baptist denomination has taken, conse- 
quent on that refusal : — why did they deny the 
request ? Was it because they had not the funds 
to spare ? their treasury was overflowing ; and they 
were looking abroad on the whole earth as the field 
of their labor. 

Was it because they had already bestowed, in aid 
of translations made by Baptist missionaries, as far 
as the contributions of the Baptist denomination 
would justify? — while the contributions of the Bap- 
tists had fallen but little, if any, short of one hundred 

* They had previously failed in an application to the Brit- 
ish and Foreign Bible Society, in consequence of the inter- 
ference of three Pedobaptist missionaries ; who, though ap- 
parently on the most friendly terms with the Baptist mission- 
aries, had, unknown to them, written to that Society, 
requesting it not to give assistance to any Indian versions, in 
which the word BaTrri^oj was translated, to immerse. 

What injuries are to result to the interests of Christianity, 
from the compliance of the British and Foreign Bible Society 
with their request : and the imitation of its example by the 
American Bible Society, He alone, who can see the end of 
all things, can tell : but it is an awful reflection, that not one 
of those three men was permitted to have the gratification of 
receiving the tidings of their success. When the news of the 
refusal of that Society to grant the aid which our brethren 
had solicited reached Calcutta, they had all been called to 
render an account of their stewardship to Ood. 



APPENDIX. 97 

thousand dollars, the Society had appropriated to aid 
the translations made by our missionaries less than 
twenty-nine thousand dollars. 

Did they refuse the aid because the translation 
was unfaithful? — its fidelity was not disputed. Be- 
cause of the unskilfulness of it ? — its philological ex- 
cellence had the testimony of missionaries of every 
denomination ; and of ten of the most learned Pun- 
dits in India. Why then, you will demand again, 
was the request denied ? I will give you the reason 
as it came honestly out in the report of the commit- 
tees to whom the request was referred. The first 
committee reported that it would be inexpedient to 
recommend appropriations until the Board should 
settle a principle in relation to the Greek word 
Bairri^co. In that report the Board concurred ; and 
referred the subject to a special committee to settle 
the principle. That committee reported, that it is 
inexpedient to appropriate funds belonging to the 
American Bible Society, in aid of translating or dis- 
tributing the Bengali New Testament, or any other 
version containing translations of the Greek words 
eayrri^io, panrKrixa^ and their cognatcs. 

The reason, then, of the refusal of the request 
was, that the version for the printing of which their 
aid was solicited, contained a translation of the 
Greek word baptizo, and its cognates ! — they refused 
the aid solicited, because its translators had not given 
a part of their " glad-tidings" in Greek ! ! and that 
part too, by which the poor pagan was to learn the 
first duty he was to perform after believing in Christ, 

9 



98 APPENDIX. 

and by the performance of which he was to make a 
public profession of his faith ; a part which enjoins 
the only act of worship which was to be perform- 
ed expressly in the name of the trinity of the true 
God ; and which he finds associated with the sanc- 
tions of eternal life and death in the very commission 
by authority of which the ministers of Christ are 
giving him the Bible as a light to his path ! ! ! 

But why is this prohibition laid on the Greek 
word paTTTL^oi any more than the Greek word ysravoeM, 
or the Greek word Tnarecc^j or any other Greek 
word ? Why do they require that a foreign, 
unmeaning term — a barbarism— -l^e obtruded upon 
every inquiring pagan, perishing though he be, in 
his ignorance of God and duty and salvation ? Is 
it because its meaning is uncertain 7 No : Pedo- 
baptists of every denomination being w^itnesses, the 
meaning of the word is to immerse. Professor Por- 
son, of the University of Cambridge, an Episcopa- 
lian, acknowledged by all competent judges to have 
been the first Greek scholar in England, pronounced 
it absurd to imagine that it had any other proper 
meaning than to dip entirely, or plunge, or immerse. 
Dr. Campbell, late professor of Divinity in Aber- 
deen, a Presbyterian, the author of the translation 
and notes so well known and so often consulted by 
every Biblical student, a man, who, from his boy- 
hood had united those habits of close investigation 
which the study of the law is so well adapted to 
give, with a diligence and a perseverance in study 
which found him among his books from five in the 



APPENDIX. 99 

morning till twelve at night, until he had passed the 
age of seventy years ; whose learning attracted the 
attention and won the respect of the literary men of 
every state in Europe ; whose understanding was 
too capacious and too acute to he fettered by human 
systems, and too judicious to be led astray by fanci- 
ful theories ; whose honesty made him declare the 
truth, how much soever it might conflict with his 
own practices, or those of the church with which he 
stood connected ; and of whose lectures on church 
history Mr. Orme, the late Secretary of the British 
and Foreign Bible Society, speaks in terms of com- 
mendation, w^hich he said he could apply to no other 
work in the language ; — this sound scholar and 
honest man pronounces the proper import of the 
term to be, to dip or immerse. Luther, the pillar of 
the Reformation, has translated it in his German Bi- 
ble by a word signifying to immerse ; and Calvin, 
the doctrinal oracleof the churches reformed, though 
he has not translated it in his Genevan Bible, has 
declared, that " it signifies to immerse.'''' 

Why then, you Avill demand again with amaze- 
ment, do they forbid its being translated ? It must 
be, you w^ill say, because it would have been intro- 
ducing an innovation on the practice of the church 
in giving the Bible to mankind ? No : besides the 
fact that the first version of the Scriptures ever made 
from the Greek, and probably made under the direc- 
tion of the Apostles themselves, or their immediate 
successors, and into the language of the people of 
Galilee, to whom the Saviour preached, and whom 



100 APPENDIX. 

his disciples baptized, contains a translation of the 
word by a term expressive of immersion ; besides 
the fact that it was translated in the Ethiopic version, 
— a version early made for the use of the country- 
men, if not for the converts, of the Ethiopian officer 
whom Philip baptized : besides the fact that it is 
translated in every other ancient version of the 
East ; and in them all tfanslated by a v/ord equiva- 
lent to immerse ; — it is also translated in nearly all, if 
not in every modern Protestant version of the west ; 
the English and Geneva English and French ver- 
sions, and those since made on their model, excepted* 
Well then, if it was not because the translation of 
the word was an innovation upon the practice of the 
general church, you will say it certainly must have 
been because it was contrary to the practice of the 
American Bible Society to aid such translation. — 
No : strange as it may sound to many of you, we 
must reply, neither could that have been the reason ; 
for they have appropriated funds not only in aid of 
.the German Bible, and the Dutch Bible in which 
the term was translated, and translated by words 
signifying immersion ; but also in aid of the ver- 
sions in which,- in defiance of all precedent, and in 
defiance of all classical usage, and in defiance of 
every lexicon of the Greek language, it was render- 
ed by a term equivalent to sprinkle ! And worse 
yet, they have appropriated their funds, in large 
amounts, in the face of all our remonstrances, to the 
publication of Morrison's Chinese translation, which 
Leang Afa, the well known Chinese convert, pro- 



APPENDIX. 101 

nounced " an unintelligible jargon :" of the truth of 
whichj you can yourselves judge, when told that the 
word baptizo is there rendered by a circumlocutionj 
the meaning of which is, according to Mr. Abeel, 
the American Pedobaptist Missionary to China, " to 
make a wash." 

" Well : if it was not an act of insanity," methinks 
some of you are by this time ready to exclaim, " for 
which no reason can be given, they must have for- 
bidden its translation as the condition of their aid, 
because they had just discovered, after twenty years' 
labor in aiding- versions containinof translations of 
the word, that they had been sinning against their 
constitution, and thought it ' inexpedient' to do so 
any more." But I have to tell you, neither could 
that have been the reason of their prohibition ; for 
although they have been sinning against it almost 
ever since they have had existence, if, according to 
the " remarks" upon it " published by the direction 
of the Board of Managers, and under the direction 
of a Committee appointed by the same," in 1830, 
the sole object of the Society is, " the dissemination 
of the unadulterated word of God ;"* yet, the consti- 

* I do not know whether the Am. B. Society *' feels itself 
at liberty^' to continue its patronage to the Spanish version 
of the New Testament or not ; or whether its managers are 
disposed to maintain that, in printing and circulating it, they 
are engaged in " the dissemination of the unadulterated word 
of God." But I cannot envy the perspicacity that discovers 
greater evil to be dreaded to the cause of pure Christianity, 
and the salvation of souls, from the versions of Baptists, thaa 

9* 



102 APPENDIX. 

tution opposed no obstacle whatever to their aiding 
versions containing correct translations of the word. 

from those of Roman Catholics ; from a translation of that 
which enjoins the ordinance of baptism, than from a corrup- 
tion of that which commands the duty to repent : a transla- 
tion, conformity to which, at worst, every Protestant ac- 
knowledges to be a scriptural obedience, than from a corrup- 
tion whose least evil is that it leaves the perishing sinner 
ignorant of what ho must do to be saved. Many who have 
contributed to give the lamp of life to the benighted, through 
the agency of the American Bible Society, will be startled to 
learn, that the Spanish version of the New Testament which 
they have for years been printing and circulating, is a version 
that was made by Roman Catholics from the Latin version 
called the Vulgate, instead of the original Greek ; and which, 
by transplanting a Latin idiom into the Spanish tongue, is 
made to enjoin the Popish imposition of penance, instead of 
repentance ; — a version which follows an omission in the Vul- 
gate to justify the adoration of relics and crosses, though all 
authority is against the omission. The Greek of the New 
Testament, in every manuscript known ; the Septuagint, 
from which St. Paul quoted the words verbatim ; and the He- 
brew, from which the Septuagint itself was translated ; the 
Syriac, the Arabic, the Coptic, the Ethiopic ; all have the 
reading which is in conformity with our common Bibles. — 
Jacob worshipped upon the top of his staff. Yet the Spanish 
version follows the Vulgate in the omission of the preposition ; 
Jacob adoravit fastiglum virgse ejus — " Jacob adoro la altura 
de su vara ;" Jacob adored the top of his rod ! Vara in Span- 
ish, is the word used for the rod or staff, to the top of which 
they affix the cross ; which the Spaniard is taught never to 
pass without adoring ; and which, so long as he has the au- 
thority of the American Bible Society for his worship, we may 
venture to predict he never will. How much more likely he 
is to be led into the truth by their aid, in respect to repent^ 



APPENDIX. 103 

On the contrary, it required that they should extend 
their influence, according to their ability, to other 
countries, by giving their aid to ^'the most faith- 
ful translations," where translations were required ; 
so that this very act, instead of being in cautious 
compliance with the requirements of the constitu- 
tion, was, itself, according to their own published 
commentary on that constitution, an added sin. 

But I must give you their reason in their own 
words ; or rather, perhaps I ought to say, in the 
words of a much valued Baptist brother, who on 
that occasion was so pacific as to think it duty not 
merely to feed a hungering enemy, but to furnish 
him with weapons and ammunition : — whether they 
were made for defence or suicide, however, the fa- 
vored may yet have reason to question. 

After the reports of the Committees to w^hich I 
have referred, and much discussion on the question 
of expediency^ the following resolution was finally 
passed, and was afterwards approved by the Society 
at its annual meeting : " Resolved^ That in appropri- 
ating money for the translating, printing or distribu- 
ting of the sacred Scriptures in foreign languages 

ance, we may judge by the following incident related by the 
Rev. Mr. Macia}^ : " I once requested an intelligent Spaniard 
who visited me in my study, to give me the true meaning of 
the word substituted for repentance, in the Spanish Bible. 
He replied, * It means to eat no breakfast — very little dinner 
— no tea ; not to lie in bed, but on the floor, and whip your- 
self ! (suiting the action to the word,) whip yourself I I whip 
yourself! IT" 



104 APPENDIX. 

the managers feel at liberty to encourage only such 
versions as conform, in the principle of their trans- 
lation, to the common English version ; at least so 
far as that all the religious denominations repre- 
sented in the Society can consistently use and circu- 
late said versions in their several schools and com- 
munities." 

The reason, then, for prohibiting the translation 
of the words, relating to baptism was, that although 
their constitution throws no obstacles in their way ; 
and although they have aided .and will continue to 
aid those versions of Christendom which contain 
translations of the words, and which they came into 
existence too late to control ; yet they do not feel at 
liberty to encourage any versions which make a dis- 
closure of their proper meaning, in pagan lands, 
where it is in their power to prevent it : and they 
cannot encourage ours, because our missionaries who 
made them, unlike Luther, and Calvin, and Camp- 
bell, and others whose example contradicted their in- 
terpretation, commend the authority of the ordinance 
by its performance ; and the performance of it, 
among the plain and simple-hearted converts from 
idolatry, in accordance with a correct and intelligible 
version of the command, makes it very difficult for 
the missionary who persists in sprinkling, to use 
his Bible and preserve his reputation for consist- 
ency!* 

* The motive of the Board iu passing this resolution, is suf- 
ficiently clear from the language itself ; but the facts which 



APPENDIX. 105 

Thus is a principle adopted for their future opera- 
tions in Bible translation which requires the mis- 
sionaries of the Baptist denomination, in giving light 
to those who are sitting in darkness and the shadow 
of death, to hold hack and cover up a part of the 
truth, as the price of the aid of that Society in dis- 
closing the rest. And for what? — that their Prot- 
estant brethren of other denominations may suc- 
ceed in transplanting, into Asia, a Papal substitution 

gave that motive its power may need to be stated. " The 
Pedobaptists," says Mr. Maclay, " who came into the field in 
the East Indies, long after our Baptist brethren, experienced 
great difficulties in making converts to sprinkling, and in 
retaining them after they were made, in consequence of the 
word BaiTTi^oi being rendered by a word signifying to ijnmerse, 
in all our versions of the sacred Scriptures. Some of their 
converts were unwilling to be sprinkled ; and others, when 
sprinkled, by mingling with the Baptist converts, became dis- 
satisfied with this substitute for baptism. The Baptist con- 
verts would ask them, Have you renounced idolatry and 
embraced the Gospel ? Upon being answered in the affirm- 
ative, they would further inquire. Have you been baptized? 
Yes. In what manner? By sprinkhng. But sprinkling is 
not baptism. Our teacher says it is. No, replies the Bap- 
tist convert, your teacher is wrong ; examine your Bible and 
you will see that sprinkling is not baptism. They would do 
so ; and, sure enough, they would find that the commission 
of Christ to all the teachers of his religion, was ; ' Go teach 
all nations, immersing them in the name of the Father, and 
of th« Son, and of the Holy Ghost ;' and accordingly they 
would be immersed." It was this difficulty which induced 
the request of the three Pedobaptist missionaries befora re- 
ferred to. 



106 APPENDIX. 

for an ordinance of Christ, which, in Europe and 
America, has been the prolific root of unutterable 
evil. This was a sacrifice of honesty and conscience, 
and of the interests of their Master's kingdom, which 
they could not, durst not make. 

In translating the Bible, they are laying the foun- 
dations upon which the churches of unborn mil- 
lions and distant centuries are to be reared ; and 
they feel it incumbent on them, according to the 
grace of God which is given to them, to lay that 
foundation wisely. It is a fundamental principle of 
the Baptist faith, that Christianity must achieve her 
conquests by the might of the naked truth. Our 
missionaries believe that every plant which the 
Father hath not planted, though it may linger out a 
sickly existence, must eventually be rooted up. They 
know that the day is coming in which every man's 
work shall be subjected to a severer ordeal than a 
by-gone superstition ever employed ; and, that they 
alone " whose work shall abide, shall receive the re- 
ward" of fidelity, or success. They remember that 
the modern is not the first missionary enterprise 
since the days of the Apostles, for the conversion of 
the nations of the east ; and they are under the most 
immovable conviction that the only hope of success 
to the present missionary enterprise, lies in carrying 
forth the gospel of Jesus Christ, the order of his 
church, and the personal exemplification of Chris- 
tianity, pure as they came from the hand of their 
author ; and, that until the nations of the east shall 



APPENDIX. 107 

see " a holy city coming down from God " Jerusalem, 
in their esteem, will be no better than Rome. 

The modern missionary enterprise was begun by 
the Baptist denomination on the very soil where this 
sacrifice was required to be made. 

The sainted Thomas, and Carey, and Marshman, 
and Ward, sat down alone on the bank of the 
Ganges, encircled by the whitening bones of those 
who had perished in the delusive hope of peace and 
salvation from ablution in its waters : the funeral 
fires of a superstition, whose tenderest sympathies 
gave the widow to the flames, were burning around 
them. And amid the groans of the bleeding pil- 
grim, and the w^ail of the dying widow ; amid the 
scoff of the proud Brahmin, and the frowns of those 
in power, they undertook to burst the fetters of a caste 
of immemorial centuries. ^* An enterprise of mad- 
ness ! a hope of delusion !" was the outcry of the 
world. And so it was, if earthly motive were the 
impulse that moved, or human policy the star that 
was to guide them. But they went " to proclaim 
liberty to the captive ; to bind up the broken hearted ;" 
they went because the Lord had sent them. They 
went in simple faith in the power, and trust in the 
promise, of Jehovah ; and the very fact that all 
former attempts had failed, made them hold with a 
firmer grasp, the instrument that God had placed 
in their hands. 

Who, then, can wonder, w^ho will dare to blame, 
if the successors of those apostles of a new Christian 



108 APPENDIX. 

era, beholding the effects which the simple truth, 
commended by their piety to every man's conscience, 
had wrought; beholding churches gathered, and 
converts multiplying; beholding India's millions 
waking from their long sleep of death, and asking 
for light to their path ; beholding the power of 
Brahminism broken ; infanticide abolished, and the 
funeral fires extinguished ; — who, we say, can won- 
der if the successors of those men, standing amid 
such scenes as these, w^hen they were required to 
mask their light, refused to do it ! Who wall dare to 
condemn them, if they held their honesty too dear 
to be sacrificed, even on charity's altar? Who can 
censure, if, holding up the IBihhj faithfully translated, 
they replied, ^' By this our fathers prevailed ; by this 
we conquer ;-^ and ceasing from man, whose breath 
is in his nostrils, as not to be accounted of, or relied 
on, they resolved to look to God alone. 

But, it is to be borne in mind, in judging of the 
course which the Baptists of this country have taken 
in this matter, that the versions made by the English 
Baptist missionaries in India, although they are so 
numerous as to embrace the languages of more than 
four hundred millions of idolaters, are not the only 
ones which are proscribed by the resolution of the 
American Bible Society. All the versions made by 
Baptist missionaries, embracing the languages and 
dialects of more than half the heathen world, suffer the 
same proscription. Nor is this all which you must 
consider ; — these versions are the only ones, with 



APPENDIX. 109 

scarcely an exception, which have been made into 
those languages : so that either they must be thrown 
away — as their translators vnll not, dare not, disguise 
them — 'and the hundreds of millions for whom they 
were prepared must go into eternity unblest, while 
other men of more supple consciences, are preparing 
other versions on the principle of accommodation 
and concealment required by that society; or the 
friends of truth and honesty in this country must 
provide for their circulation, just as they are, that aid 
which the American Bible Society refused. 

In this dilemma, their brethren in America have 
said to them, " Hold fast' your integrity; ' endeavor, 
by earnest prayer and diligent study, to ascertain the 
exact meaning of the original text ; to express that 
meaning as exactly as the nature of the languages 
into which you translate the Bible, will permit ; and 
transfer no words which are capable of being literally 
translated ;' and if the Bible Societies desert you for 
renouncing the hidden things of dishonesty, for not 
walking in craftiness, and refusing to handle the 
word of God deceitfully, yet will not we ; nor will 
He, whose commission you bear. Translate that 
commission ; proclaim and fulfil it, and if they will 
not help you, we willP 

Now, in holding to them such language, have we 
done wrong ? Have we done wrong ? In adopting 
measures to make our promise good, hav« we done 
wrong? After waiting for the action of the Ameri- 
can Bible Society, ia the hope of its reversing the 



110 APPENDIX, 

decision of its Board, and after witnessing the con- 
firmation of that decision by the Society, at its an- 
nual meeting*, a convention of the denomination, — 
the largest ever assembled in this country — on a re- 
view of all the circumstances of our condition as a 
denomination, and the pressing wants of the nations 
for whom we had prepared, or were preparing, ver- 
sions of the Scriptures ; proceeded, with great una- 
nimity, to the formation of a Society to arouse and 
direct the energies of our half a million of mem- 
bers in giving the Bible, so far as God might help 
us to do it, to the nations of the earth. 

But although it was formed by Baptists, to meet 
the demand of the circumstances into which we had 
been thrown, we repel the idea of subservience to 
party or sectarian purposes. The Society was 
formed on the broad principle of giving the Bible 
fully and faithfully translated, and leaving sect and 
party to God and to the force of his truth. Not a 
little has been said, and written, about sectarianism 
and bigotry ; about embarrassing missionary oper- 
ations, ifec, but I thank God I have heard none of it 
from my brethren. None of them, so far as I am 
aware, have been guilty of advancing charges so 
heavy against those from whom we have suffered ; 
though they have often been pained with having to 
bear them. 

The charge is indeed heavy, but against whom 
does it lie ? Against us, who united with the other 



APPENDIX. HI 

denomination, — for let it be remembered, that with 
respect to this matter, there are but two, the Bap- 
tist and the Pedobaptist — to print and circulate the 
Scriptures in the dress and mask which an arbitrary- 
monarch, of Popish extraction, of Presbyterian edu- 
cation, but defender of the faith of Episcopacy, chose 
to give them ; and who carried his zeal against the 
translation of ecclesiastical words so far as to retain for 
the Jewish Passover, sacred as it was with the blood 
of the Lamb of God, the substituted name of a 
Saxon goddess? Does it belong to uSj who united 
with a denomination to suit whose practice that ver- 
sion was made, and poured our mites till they swelled 
to scores of thousands into their hands, to circulate 
that version all over our land, although it was per- 
petuating ignorance by concealment, and error by 
misinterpretation, on the point on which we are at 
issue? Or, does it belong to those who refuse to 
help us print or circulate a most faithful, un im- 
peached and unimpeachable version, in a far distant 
heathen land, because we had translated the terms 
relating to baptism ; refused, though their treasury 
was full, to give us part of that money which our 
confiding churches and our dying brethren had 
trusted to their stewardship, for giving light to the 
perishing, and sent us out penniless, with the only 
existing translations in our hands, for hundreds of 
millions of pagans, because we had translated a word 
as their own best scholars tell us it should be trans- 
lated, and as every version of the primitive ages 



112 APPENDIX. 

gives it ;* as almost every modern version of the re- 
formed churches of Europe gives it ; as the practice 
©f the churches of Western Europe, papal and anti- 

* Although I do not approve of animadversion on the 
'^ King James' Bible," as our common version is called, since 
it is the only one which is generally accessible, and for that 
reason in general use ; yet, as it is now held forth by the 
American Bible Society as a standard for the whole pagan 
world, so sacred as to justify the extinction of existing trans- 
lations in languages spoken by more than half the heathen 
on the globe, I feel it due to the cause of truth, that the 
world should know its claims to infallibility. 

It is generally believed to be a translation whish was 
made by men, selected for the work on account of their 
skill in the languages in which the Scriptures were originally 
written ; and to have been translated by them, out of the 
original tongues, according to the best of their knowledge 
and skill. 

The fact is, that instead of performing the work according 
to the best of their knowledge and skill, they were obliged to 
submit themselves, as passive instruments, to the dictation of 
a monarch noted for passion, pedantry, and self-will ; and, of 
a cringing and worldly Archbishop, who had reluctantly 
yielded to the demands of the puritan interest in the estab- 
lished church, for a better version than the one then in au- 
thorized use. And when some of the principal scholars of 
their body suggested, as it appears from the testimony of 
Dr. Gell, chaplain to the Archbishop Abbot, they repeatedly 
aid suggest, new and varying translations ; they were re- 
minded that it " was not the object of those who had brought 
them together^* 

Instead of their making a new translation, it appears from 
the investigations of the late Dr. Homer, a Pedobaptist clergy- 
man of Massachusetts, who had spent sixty years in the crit- 



APPENDIX. 113 

papal, for thirteen hundred years, confirms it ; as 
the churches of Greece, of Servia, Bulgaria, Wal- 
lachia, Moldavia, and even frozen Russia, explain 

ical study of the history and character of tlie different ver- 
sions of the Scriptures, that only about one twenty -seventh 
part of the Old Testament, and one eighty-fourth part of the 
New Testament, is entitled to the name of a new translation. 
And instead of their having made even this small portion 
from the original tongues. Dr. Homer believes, that although 
they did not wholly neglect the Hebrew and Greek originals, 
they consulted the Greek of the New Testament with the aid 
of the Latin version of Ereismus interlined ; and the Hebrew 
of the Old Testament, with the help of the interlined trans- 
lation of Arius Montanus ; a translation which is so barbar- 
ously literal as completely to sacrifice the idiom of the Lathi 
language. This Latin translation of Montanus is made upon 
" a principle which seizes a single meaning of a word and. 
holds to it, whatever absurdities it may involve, entirely dis- 
regarding the context ; a principle, which, instead of giving, 
the sense of the original, sometimes gives downright non- 
sense ; frequently, a different meaning from the original ; 
and, not seldom, makes the author say in another language, 
the reverse of what he said in his own."* The use of a 
version like that is certainly not very favourable to the 
position maintained by Todd, in his Vindication of the Trans- 
lators, that they w^ere men eminently skilled in the Ori- 
ental and Greek languages, and fitted in every respect for 
the high and honorable task assigned to them by their 
sovereign. 

Although these facts strongly condemn the course pursued 
by the American Bible Society, and even point to the neces- 
sity of an improved version in the English language, they 
need not awaken apprehension in the mind of the unlettered 

• Dr. Campbell's strictures on the version of Arius Montanus. 



114 APPENDIX. 

and enforce it to the present day ? Against whom, 
I repeat, does the charge of sectarianism, of bigotry, 
and of embarrassing missionary operations, lie ? I 
appeal to the world — let the honest judge and an- 
swer. 

Although, as may well be supposed, I feel indig- 
nant at charges so misapplied ; and at the injustice 
of the course which has been pursued towards the 
Baptist denomination, and the cruelty of it to the 
perishing millions of Asia, to whom, by the act of 
the American Bible Society, the Bible is denied ; I 
wish to say that the feeling is directed against those 
exclusively who are responsible for the evil. Far 
be it from me to suppose for a moment, that my 
brethren of other denominations, generally, approve 
the principle of accommodation, concealment, and 
conformity to a fallible human standard, adopted by 
the American Bible Society. A portion even of 
their own members in the Board voted against the 
resolution ; and it is my firm conviction, that the 
day is near when the honesty, and piety, and con- 
science, and honor, of those denominations, will be 
aroused to a sense of this injustice and cruelty : and 
when that society will be compelled to abandon its 



Christian : for although our common version is not sufficiently 
immaculate to admit the seal of infallibility, or to justify its 
being made a standard for all new versions to be given to th6 
pagan world : yet it is not sufficiently defective, except in re- 
lation to baptism and church order, to be distrusted as a 
guide to tru^h or duty. 



APPENDIX. 115 

principle of expediency^ and adopt that of giving to 
the world, " the Bible faithfully and fully translated^'^ 
or it will find the confidence and support of those 
on whom it has relied, withdrawn. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: April 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



Ooo- 
o 

o 



-ooO 
o 



VALUABLE WORKS 

FOR SALE BY 

LEWIS COLBY, 122, iJASSAU-STREET, NEW-TOKK 



THE CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLE IN OUR LITERATURE, 

By William R. Williams, D.D. 38ct3. 

FACTS FOR BOYS, 

Selected and Arranged "by Joseph Belcher, D.D. SOcts. 

FACTS FOR GIRLS. 

Selected and Arranged hy Joseph Belcher, D.D. 30ct3. 

HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, 

By William Jones. 2 vols. |3 60. 

THE BAPTIST LIBRARY, 

A Repuhlication of Standard Baptist Works. 3 vols. 8vo. ^6. 

MEMOIR OF ELDER JESSE MERCER, 

By C. D. Mallory. ^1. 



Malcom's Travels 


in S. E. Asia, 1 vol. . . $1 60 




Ripley's Notes on 
<« tt 


L the Gospels, , . » . 1 25 
Acts 76 




Malcom's Bible Dictionary, .... 50 




Baptist Manual, 


60 




What is Baptism. 


? By Transmontanus, . . 42 




Baptism its own Witness. By Rev. W. Hague, 13 




Mixed and Restricted Communion. By Jacob Knapp, 6 




The Karen Apostle . 
Hinton on Baptism . 
Carson •* 
Jewett " 
Pengilly ** 
Woolsey " 
Ripley " 


42 
75 
1 75 
25 
6 
63 
50 


Frey on Baptism 
Bliss ** 
Baptismal Question . 
Fuller on Communion 
Howell 
Pendleton •* 


75 
76 
67 
60 
76 
13 



o 
O 

Ooo- 



THE PSALMIST; 

A new Collection of Hymns for the use of the Baptist 
Churches By Baron Stow and S. E. Smith. 

WATTS AND RIPPON'S HYMN BOOK. 

MANUAL OF PSALMODY. 



O 

-ooc 



